Can He Do It Again?

The seemingly impossible may be about to happen at The Wanderers in Johannesburg as Australia's youngest and oldest cricketers starred on another stirring day. This may well be an epic Test match in which fairy tales come true.

Amla's century

The Australian bowlers were a disciplined bunch. Pat Cummins was the out and out star, taking 6-79 from 29 overs but for a change, an Australia attack was able to hunt as a pack. AB deVilliers was removed early, after Cummins had pushed him onto the back foot. When a fuller one came, he drove poorly at it, too wide to hit but close enough to send the edge to Michael Clarke at second slip. Amla was out to Mitchell Johnson, now bowling a line much closer to off stump. The ball started on middle and off and slanted across the century maker and was feathered to Brad Haddin. In between, an uncomfortable Ashwell Prince was run out in calling mishap with Amla, Ricky Ponting looking as sharp as his younger days at cover point and running the ball into the stumps at the batsman's end. Mark Boucher played for a big off break from Nathan Lyon and when it didn't come, he edged hard to Shane Watson at first slip who held it well as it came fast to his midriff.

With 4 wickets falling for 37, Clarke held back the new ball as his bowlers were making good use of the old one but Dale Steyn and Vernon Philander proved a nuisance. It was eventually taken, Australia being the first side to need a second new ball in the series. Cummins cleaned up the tail. Whatever this lad eats should be bottled and held back for special occasions because he took two wickets with the first two balls after lunch. Philander was unlucky enough to get a thumb to a rising ball through to Haddin and then Morne Morkel was cleaned up with a yorker straight from the Fred Trueman text book. The last pair added 25 before Steyn, who had been sat on his backside by both Cummins and Johnson, had a windy whoof outside offstump and provided Haddin with his fourth catch and an opportunity to send Ian Healy a postcard.

Cummins  bowls Morkel

Cummins was clearly superb, especially given his lack of experience at the highest level. It speaks well of the development programs in NSW that he has come through under age championships and talent identification schemes which have hardened him along the way. Perhaps more of the young will be accepted now into the national team. He bowled with the pace off, averaging mid 130's but his control was much better, despite a massive four wides he spilled down the leg side. Johnson bowled within himself and with a more productive line. He also bowled at a more reasonable pace and seemed on top of his task. Lyon, again the support bowler, did all that was asked of him and never flagged, even under Steyn's attack.

As always underestimated, Peter Siddle went wicket less but was as good as Cummins. He bowled faster than the others but again had his outswinger moving away from the right handers. His line and length were where he chose them to be: a control he has not always had.

Billy McDermott's influence is all over this attack.

Khawaja pulling to midwicket

Chasing 310, Australia began badly. In fact, its hard to image how they could have made a worse start. Watson and Phil Hughes were both gone inside three overs. Philander hooped the first ball of the innings away from Watson and the second he bent back the other way. Its an old three card trick but it worked. Watson had his bat in the air and the Kookaburra had an unimpeded path to the top of off stump. Its not the first time Watson has made such an error. Despite his first innings batting, which enjoyed some luck, it's now 22 innings since his last century, made in the Spring campaign against India more than a year ago and five of his last eight Test innings have been single figures. Hughes was the technical disaster he will always be, thrusting his bat away from his body in back foot defence as his hips rotated his left leg to point. The edge to slips is always inevitable. He will continue to punctuate his low scores with fifties - maybe even hundreds - but long chains of low scores will remain. He is not a Test standard batsman and Justin Langer cannot perform miracles.

Khawaja, batting in his true position, was solid. Covering his off stump and using his height to his advantage, he avoided trouble by keeping his eye on the ball and by applying technique and concentration to the task. He can prevent what Hughes causes. He pulled all the bowlers viciously but judiciously and finally managed his first half century in his stop/start appearances in the Baggy Green.

Ponting 54x

Ricky Ponting came to the crease deep in pressure. At 2-19, the future of the innings and the match was on his shoulders. His poor form had finally caught up with him in the past few days and he had no friends in the media and only a few, brave and tormented souls in the lounge rooms of Australia. It was all there for him to lose. Early on, he was beaten all ends up by Philander - the ball leaving precious little air beside it as it passed his bat. Squared up by a delivery which started on middle and then whispered past the outside edge, Ponting had been done. Then a strange thing happened. A slow smile crept across that steely face as he looked back at Philander standing in mid pitch. It wasn't challenge or arrogance spreading on his face, which we all know to be his way. This was admiration.

There after, years were brushed aside. Ponting pulled the ball down and well in front of square leg, rattling the mid wicket boundary off all the quicks. Steyn was removed from the attack with no thought of lbw's after Ponting played a back foot drive past cover point with such timing and force that two fieldsmen who might have covered it, crossed each other in pursuit after it had struck the rope. The bat was venturing straight up the pitch and when it went to leg, the front leg was out towards midwicket, the blade uninhibited.

As the afternoon wore on and the light became dim, Steyn came back for another crack at Ponting but the status of the contest was clear when Ponting played an imperious straight drive to long on, always the sign that his footwork and the arc of his bat are in order.

At the very end, with two balls remaining, Khawaja played a lazy shot like one might do at the end of a successful net. Not moving his feet, he touched it to Jacques Kallis low at slip, who held it well for the big man he has become. Light ended it one ball later.

Great champions rising from the canvas when all believe them beaten, is the stuff that sports fans base long discussions on. In Australian cricket, we have our share of such stories. McCabe vs Larwood in Sydney during bodyline; Bradman against England immediately after the war in 1946; Taylor's 129 at Edgbaston; Greg Chappell's last Test innings hundred; Waugh's last ball hundred in Sydney an opus replayed on heavy rotation (there must have been 200 000 there that afternoon) ... and others which you can paint on your own story telling canvas. At the Wanderers, we may be about to see another legendary innings arise from a man who has been one of Australia's six best batsmen of all time. Ponting has the chance to play the hand which guides Australia to an important victory: a victory to provide scaffolding in the rebuilding already underway by an unassuming foreman we have all mistaken for a casual labourer. That, is only part of the opportunity that presents itself. The other, should he break that hundred drought and should Australia win, is to retire. Forget all other considerations Ricky but leave as the champion we remember, with a story we can revere and with the job done.

I'll be crossing my fingers twice.