Ricky Ponting’s Headingley Bloomer | Australia captain | Ricky Ponting
The outcome of the second Test between Pakistan and Australia was based on a mistake by Ricky Ponting.
To win the toss and bat first in those conditions was criminal and neither Brian Close nor Ray Illingworth watching it with me could believe it. Anyone who’s done their homework on Headingley knows that under cloud cover the ball will swing and seam and to make matters worse the rain had been bouncing down in Leeds the night before and the pitch was bound to have sweated under the tarpaulin covers. With a 10.30 start in the morning it was asking for trouble and if he had won the toss and come up to me as an opener and said we were batting I’d have hit him with the bat. In England, with an early start in those conditions you want to field first and the seam bowlers would be queuing up to get the ball in their hands. That decision alone cost Australia the game because on that first morning some of the balls went sideways and although it was never easy, when the sun came out batting became better despite the fact there was always something there for the bowlers.
Neither side is at home in these conditions because they don’t come across them very often and are used to coming at the ball forcefully whereas at Leeds you have to let the ball come to you. It’s the sort of thing I learned by playing on uncovered pitches for 18 years of my career.
In 18 year old Mohammad Aamer, the left arm seamer, Pakistan have a real talent. I remember seeing him at the start of his career and being impressed but now he gets in closer to the stumps more often and swings the ball late and at pace. He’s got aggression and the heart to go with it and he could become even more dangerous when he gets even closer to the stumps. But he produces some great deliveries and the one he got Mitchell Johnson with in the first innings was a cracker that would have got many a better batsman out. As Fred Trueman would have said of such a magnificent delivery: "It were wasted on thee, lad".
On a level playing field you’d back Australia to win every time and good though the Pakistan bowlers were, their batting is young, talented, naïve and folds under pressure. They had seven down at the end even though the Aussies didn’t bowl very well; too short and wide where at Headingley you need to be full and straight.
The Australians no longer have great bowlers like Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne to get them out of jail now and they paid the price for Ponting’s crass error of judgement. Well done Pakistan.
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