Cricket Ashes, Second Test:In this part of the world, where pitches are as dry as the sense of humour, the new ball is an object almost of idolatry, its appearance greeted with the sort of reverence and ceremony reserved by druids for sunrise on midsummer's day. And woe betide the team that, having got hold of it, lets it go to waste.
By the time both Australia and England had been able to avail themselves of the second new Kookaburra - Australia late on the first evening and England three quarters of an hour before the close yesterday, the situation of the innings at the respective stages - England 254 for three; Australia 253 for three - could scarcely have been closer.
As stumps were drawn yesterday evening, though, it was England, through the uncomplaining endeavour of Matthew Hoggard, perhaps the premier exploiter of the brand new ball in international cricket, who had the edge. For while Australia were made to wait a further 214 runs before they saw success, Hoggard's double strike, including the home captain after another brilliant century, gave an advantage to the visitors, leaving Australia to contemplate the morrow on 312 for five, 40 adrift still of avoiding the possibility of following on.
Perhaps, after Paul Collingwood's double hundred on Saturday, this is a match for workers, the boys in the engine room who stoke the boilers while the braid brigade sup pink gins on the bridge.
Hoggard was superb, taking all four wickets that fell, putting the hold on Australia during a nine-over workout first thing, his field set around the batsmen as if for table-top cricket (out if you knock them down) as in the absence of swing, his stock-in-trade, he reverted to the off-cutters that have lent a versatility to his game that once was lacking.
He was able too to play his part in a holding operation against Ponting and Mike Hussey during a fourth-wicket stand of 192 that at one time looked to have the potential to match that of Collingwood and Kevin Pietersen.
The advent of the new ball, when he begins to swing his arms, get loose, set his mind, is Hoggard's time, though. Ponting was well set, playing wonderfully despite rumours, before lunch, that he had been suffering double vision (that he could make so consistently the right choice of which ball to hit at any one time would have been a minor miracle), intent on the double hundred that eluded him in Brisbane.
Already, before tea, an ambled single had taken him to his 33rd Test century, more than any other Australian, and his 10th in his last 13 matches, something that only the West Indian Clyde Walcott, who managed 10 in 12 games, can top. Ponting of course has not finished yet in this series by a long chalk.
He was not free of blemish yesterday, enjoying and making the most of two slices of good fortune - Steve Waugh always regarded a second or third life not as missed chances but opportunities created - as the best players do.
When 35, while Hoggard was in the middle of morning duties that had seen him remove Matthew Hayden (caught at the wicket from an insipid poke outside off-stump) and Damien Martyn (snaffled by Ian Bell low down in the gully), Ponting latched on to a rare short ball and pulled it flat to deep square leg.
Ashley Giles, half a dozen paces in from the boundary's edge, leapt but could not pull down a catch that he or anyone, even Monty Panesar, might expect to take seven times out of 10.
At 78 for four, Australia would have been in deep trouble so no wonder Giles, aware that he is scarcely the people's choice as spinner, looked doleful behind his shades. Later, with lunch approaching, Ponting embarked on a quick and, he soon realised, suicidal run to Collingwood at midwicket and would have been run out by his own height had the fielder's throw not whistled past the stumps.
With him was Hussey, and it is these two - Ponting's Olympian standards raised to new heights of technical skill and concentration allied to the establishing of Hussey in the team over the past year - who represent the only definite improvement that the Australians have managed to make to their side in the 14 months since the last Ashes series.
Hussey missed out on a century in Brisbane when he had his off-stump detonated from the ground by Andrew Flintoff but, a desperately close call for a run-out apart, he looked to be compensating for that here.
Hoggard's sixth delivery with the new ball changed the complexion of the day though. Hussey, the non-striker, having faced the previous four balls, came down the pitch and spoke earnestly to Ponting.
What did he say that was so important? No swing? Concentrate, skipper? Had he detected Ponting flagging? Hoggard began his run but stopped and trudged back to his mark.
The delivery when it came, delivered from a cocked wrist, had the seam scrambling rather than ramrod straight, the better for movement from the surface, and it was perfectly pitched in that area just outside off-stump that has batsmen reaching, caught in two minds. Ponting pushed, his bat angling towards point, and Geraint Jones, unobtrusively efficient behind the stumps, took the catch. For almost six hours and with 142 runs, Ponting had defied the England attack.
It was five more overs before Hoggard struck again, and this time it was Hussey, having reached 91, who appeared to be flagging. Down he went on his haunches, a sign of an impending innings from Hayden but of weariness in others, before taking his stance.
This time the seam was upright, like a buzzsaw, as Hoggard shaded the ball into the batsman minimally.
Hussey spotted it, shaped to play and then realised it was not hooping in at him as much as he anticipated.
Too late, though, to withdraw the bat fully: the ball took the inside edge, careered into his stumps and Hoggard roared his delight.
Scoreboard
Overnight:England 551-6 dec (P D Collingwood 206, K P Pietersen 158, I R Bell 60). Australia 28-1.
Australia First Innings
M L Hayden c G O Jones b Hoggard 12
R T Ponting c G O Jones b Hoggard 142
D R Martyn c Bell b Hoggard 11
M E K Hussey b Hoggard 91
M J Clarke not out 30
A C Gilchrist not out 13
Extras lb2 nb7 pens 0 9
Total 5 wkts (97 overs) 312
Fall: 1-8 2-35 3-65 4-257 5-286
To Bat: S K Warne, S R Clark, G D McGrath.
Bowling: Hoggard 27 2 76 4, Flintoff 22 4 74 1, Harmison 13 4 46 0, Anderson 14 2 49 0, Giles 16 2 45 0, Pietersen 5 0 20 0.
