He's back, and he's in the same dominating touch that has plundered 35 test centuries at an average close to 60. That's right, the Australian captain Ricky Ponting has repsonded to claims he's out of touch with a big hundred, and watching it last night, it looked as if he had never been out of touch in the first place.
Ponting has had a rough ride the last 6 months, after speculation he was falling off the horse with poor showing against Sri Lanka and India and then a rather furitless stay with Kolkata in the IPL.
However, on day one of the test against the West Indies, he showed why he has as many test centuries as he does and why he is regarded up with Sachin as one of world cricket's finest batsmen.
His tendancy to fall across the ball early was muted by his techical decision to keep his bat closer to his pad, and whenever the bowlers pitched short, he was immediately cutting and pulling with savage intent.
The Windies bowled poorly to him, they had no real plan and did not exploit Ponting's usual weakness against the ball that moves into offstump. Harbajan, Murali and Ishant Sharma all exploited this weakness during the Australian summer, but no-one stepped up for the Windies, who looked really toothless.
It does not bode well for the Windies that Ponting is in form, with a taste for centuries back. Currently sitting just below 10,000 test runs, look for Ponting to start catching up to Sachin now.
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