Ponting puts Australia on course to level series

Cricket Australia v India With another day of methodical batting and two late wickets, Australia seem to have put the Third Test beyond India's reach, and may have achieved a momentum to retrieve the series.

India's eight remaining wickets must somehow conjure the 165 runs necessary to make the hosts bat again.

The Test has been a vindication so far for a different candidate for world's best batsman. Ricky Ponting, encamped overnight at 120, marched on to the commanding heights of 257, improving his Test best for the second consecutive match, and providing only the eighth instance of back-to-back Test double hundreds.

In 10 minutes short of 10 hours, Ponting faced 458 deliveries and struck a century in boundaries. He was more circumspect but surer in his strokeplay than the day before, losing control only when he reached his 200.

In 19 Tests since October 2002, Ponting has accumulated 2,213 runs at 88.5, including 10 hundreds.

He is coming into his captaincy inheritance ripe with runs and rich in admirers.

Ponting will understand, of course, that tougher days lie ahead, like the one the incumbent captain had yesterday.

Steve Waugh's farewell to the arena on which he made his Test debut as a callow 20-year-old in December 1985 not only did not go to the script but seemed to follow no script at all.

Waugh came out to bat at 12.15 p.m. to such salaams of enthusiasm that it was as if he were being borne to the centre on a sedan chair by dusky maidens.

He made a few preliminary stretches, gave the trademark shoulder rolls and hip sways, addressed some brief words to Ponting, and let his first ball go as he began the de rigueur 150 not out.

With the ovation still ringing, however, he ducked into the next ball, a short though scarcely violent delivery from Ajit Agarkar, and wore it on the upper arm. Australia's physiotherapist Errol Alcott reviewed the damage and, without further ado, both left. The cameo was complete by 12.20 p.m.

Over lunch, the scoreboard screen ran a Waugh compilation video as if to satisfy the unsatisfied public appetite.

India's pace bowler Zaheer Khan will miss the rest of the series after aggravating the hamstring injury he picked up in the first Test.