As soon as the Ponting-Clarke partnership was broken, Australia pretty much subsided meekly. Ponting deserved his second century of the match (had he got there, he would've become the first batsman to bag two tons in a match on four occasions), but Smith's field placing, putting himself in at short extra cover, was spot on.
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Not sure Mackenzie would be so chuffed at the field placings....anyone see the full bloodied cover drive from Ponting that he stopped from all of a yard away...ouch!
They Aussie commentators were talking last night about Pontings captaincy being in jeopardy if the lose this and the next series. The concern is that its not they are getting beat, but they are getting comfortably beaten. If they hadnt squeezed in the Kiwis they would be looking at 6 tests without a win.
What they were saying though was that in Australia they dont tend to continue to play the captain after he steps down. We have done it with Atherton, Steward, Hussein but they (i think it was Warne and Taylor behind the mike at the time) were saying they couldnt see Ponting continue playing if he was stripped of the captaincy. That would be cracking for England as he is still probably the best batsman in the world at the moment.
Fair point about the McKenzie positioning - although it almost stuck in his stomach for what would've been an incredible (and fortunate) catch. However, it did the job in that a) it stopped the ball going for runs and b) it tempted a set Ponting to drive at the ball, and it could easily have flown into the slips for a catch. That won't've meant much to the fielder.
I heard the debate on Ponting continuing after potentially losing the captaincy. I think what potentially differs this time compared to previous skippers (Border, Taylor, Waugh) is that the great Australia side of the past 10-15 years is being broken up. Langer, Gilchrist, Warne, McGrath, Gillespie have all gone, and with his form over the past year, Hayden is well on his way too. In fact, looking ahead to the next Ashes series in Australia in 2010/11, you can only really see Ponting, Clarke, Haddin and Johnson of the established players still definitely playing at Test standard (players such as Hussey, Symonds and Lee will be well into their thirties, and Australian selectors don't possess much sentimentality).
For that reason, I would be gobsmacked if Ponting was dropped as a batsman, even if he was relieved of the captaincy. They may not (although they should) lose this series, and the return series in South Africa in February/March offers an immediate opportunity of redemption. If they lost that, it would be three series defeats out of four, and legitimate concerns could be raised about his captaincy. However, he has hit over 1000 runs in a calendar year five times in the past seven years, and averages over 57 across his career, so it would be cricketing suicide to drop a batsman of that calibre given the losses that the team has sustained of late.
