Ponting's wake-up call & Zaheer's jaffa

This time, Ponting didn't yell at the bowler to 'go back and bowl'.The punctuation mark

David Warner signalled Australia’s positive intent early, unleashing an array of drives through the off-side. But what really woke everybody up was a powerful pull off Umesh Yadav. Warner took the ball off his face, and with a typical display of his power, pulled it before square over the boundary. Australia had won the first hour, and the six was the punctuation mark to conclude it.

The wake-up call

After the rain break, Umesh Yadav overcame a sloppy start and turned the game around in two overs, dismissing Warner and Shaun Marsh. Out came Ponting, going through the longest rut of his career. The second ball he faced from Umesh was too quick for him.

As he shaped for a pull, the ball hit his forearm and crashed into his helmet. He had the presence of mind to kick the ball away from the stumps. In the 1999 series, when Javagal Srinath struck him in the face, an angry young Ponting yelled at him to go back and bowl. This time, a mellow veteran took the blow quietly and got down to repairing the innings.

The jaffa

Mike Hussey now has three ducks in his last three outings in all forms: a first-baller in the Hobart Test, a six-baller in the Big Bash and a first-baller today. Zaheer Khan bowled him a near-unplayable bouncer that was shaping away and looked like it hit the glove on its way to MS Dhoni. Marais Erasmus upheld India’s huge appeal but replays showed the ball had made no contact with the batsman.

The Ishant redux

Umesh nearly had Ponting in a manner similar to the Hussey dismissal. But Umesh would get his man in the same over. A delivery short of driving length shaped away and Ponting poked at it. The easy catch at second slip was taken. It was a near-perfect replica of Ponting’s Perth dismissal to Ishant Sharma in 2008.

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