Asked about the botched head job, Ponting gave the following comments:

Bryce was quite ill up in Potchefstroom and he’s actually gone down again overnight today.

“Quite ill”, hardly glowing praise for the right arm tweaker who by all accounts delivered a long spell on a sticky wicket. Not even going down on Ponting again overnight today was enough to convince the timezone confused captain that Bryce was able to consistently hit good areas, McGain coming up short on several occasions.

Man Cry

The Victorians are píssed off, as having their top players unavailable due to national service is a new problem for them. Now they’ll have to go without the services of Cameron White and David Hussey, who have a ODI on Friday and need their beauty sleep. There is no factual basis to reports that Cameron White Cried, again, at hearing the news, though it does sound likely.

Ryan Harris has been dropped from the national squad so will be available for Queensland, however they’ve replaced him with Mitchell Johnson so that’s probably worse for the New Texas Bulls, who’ll also be missing James Hopes.

CA have also denied requests for the players to be available of for the final, so NSW will be missing David Warner, Michael Clarke, Nathan Bracken, Brad Haddin and Nathan Hauritz.

This could well end up a good experience, as Michael Hussey is keen to explain IPL loyalties come before the state that bought you up, so depending on which IPL teams make the club championship any Australian side could be without their stars when the big bucks are on offer.

Victoria squad: Brad Hodge (capt), Aiden Blizzard, Rob Quiney, Aaron Finch, Andrew McDonald, Matthew Wade, Adam Crosthwaite (wk), Damien Wright, Shane Harwood, Jon Holland, Bryce McGain, Dirk Nannes.

Queensland squad: Chris Simpson (capt), Wade Townsend, Ryan Broad, Lee Carseldine, Nathan Reardon, Glen Batticciotto, Craig Philipson, Chris Hartley (wk), Ryan Harris, Nathan Rimmington, Ben Cutting, Alister McDermott, Ben Laughlin.

Inspired by Bryce McGain’s big comeback, I figure I’d jump the gun and start playing a few years younger than he did. So I headed down to North Shore Cricket Club for their net session on Tuesday.

You see I’ve been keeping my form up with beach cricket, a swing king and a lot of beers. Figured I could bowl a bit and was old enough to play for Australia.

My first ball came out backwards. No, not the back of the hand like Warney, I mean backwards, as in behind me and away from the batsman. It seems in my desire to deliver a full ball that I didn’t release it until the arm had gone over, and around, and down, and back again.

Next up came 3 or 4 wide beamers down leg. One even hit the side net before it got to the batsman. Needless to say I was impressing my future team mates with my control at this point.

I decided that my run up completely sucked, since we were using a discarded apple core to mark the back foot line. So I did my run up in reverse and marked out a purposeful 7 steps.

This made a huge difference as I could now actually run in without half stepping, allowing me to actually concentrate on bowling. I slowed it down a bit too, in the interests of landing on the pitch, and while it was still all over the show most of the balls could now be called legal deliveries.

After I’d been bowling for about 40 minutes my mate Tomm showed up, and I actually started to bowl half well, so much so that unlike everyone else there he didn’t know that I was complete shíte.

I started to pitch it up to the batsman at a reasonable medium pace and was thinking I should start bowling quicker now when Tomm who actually played last year informed me “That’s a pretty good ball. 6 of them would be a respectable over”.

Challenge Accepted. 6 of them. And you know what? 6 came out pretty well. The last one was a bit short and the batsman spanked it back down the track, however the nets have a back wall so you don’t have to run after it.

All up I bowled for around 90 minutes, at first in a rotation of 4, then 3, then the last 12 balls as the only bowler left.

Now I’m left with the pain, which starts in my left foot’s big toe and escallates through my body to the focal point of pain – the right shoulder. Breathing is laboured and laughing intensely painful. The pain spikes are the left bottom rig, right back shoulder blade, and right groin.

This post is bought to you by Nurofen Plus.

Fortunately the Indian terrorists are cricket tragics, and only use the kind of bombs that permit Aussies to tour, presumably ones laden with rupees.

India have been granted their choice of umpires with Steve Bucknor and Mark Benson being dropped from the tour for a few bad calls in Sydney resulting in the biggest sub-continental hissy fit since Arjuna called for a runner.

Now we’re stuck with Damien Martyn’s favourite official Aleem bloody Dar who will be doing his best to forget the lbw law, again.

Australia’s preperation has ordinary at best. Fortunately the players who were rested injured for the Bangers top end tribute have all recovered in time, and some fool stuck a microphone in front of Hayden who is “seeking the runs”.

The great white elephant Nice Bryce McGain has been sent home for spending too much time on his facebook page leaving Jason Krejza with the spinning duties. Here’s hoping the young lad from Newtown can improve on his 43 first-class wickets at 45.46 from 23 matches. Fortunately Michael Clarke has a phenomonal record against and in India with the ball, if his back can hold up we’ll be hoping for another 6/9.

Our 2 day tour match with a near full strength batting lineup was a complete shambles. Surely we’ll lift from that effort.

Rick(y)’s been speculating that Anil might refuse his catching agreement! Who would have thought, just cause Ponting claims catches that bounce and Clarke didn’t walk, lets have a gentlemans agreement on catches.

Regardless, the Border/Gavaskar trophy is at stake and 2 test wins will ensure we keep the trophy. If we lose then maybe we get to choose the umpires next time.

What’s next? Boony suing VB for sclerosis? Warney suing Nokia for RSI? Bryce McGain suing Cricket with Balls for distorting his Google results?

Perhaps Jamie should take up an American coaching gig when his Bangladesh role expires.

I don’t think they’ve done such a bad job. Sure I might just be saying that cause they picked 40% of their players from the mighty Bluetongues… however, looking at the strength of the Bluetongues, this being a team that despite missing the likes of Lee, Bracken, Haddin, Jaques, Clark and Clarke still make the final of the Moomoo Cup, they should be all rights dominate the central contracts.

There are still a few issues I have with the selected squad – most notably having no backup for Brad Haddin. Clearly we’ll need a second gloveman to go on tour, unless they expect King Hussey to do that as well.

Regarding the selection of spinners – lets argue that they went into the selection meeting determined to pick two spinners – one for now and one for the future..

For the incumbent position the options would be Stuart MacGill and Bryce ‘the Viking’ McGain. Hmmm tough choice, perhaps a look at the numbers might help.

I suppose we should factor into these numbers that Macgilla’s home track does traditionally take spin while the MAFLG prefer to drop in pitches lest they hurt the aerial ping pongers.

So, a proven and rehabilitated test hero, or a 36 year old with ordinary numbers who lands it on the right spot.

As for a second spinner – if we’re looking for someone young then the options really are Beau Repair, Dan Cullen and Cullen Bailey. The two Cullen’s both had central contracts last year and deteriorated beyond recognition, this should prove a real kick up the bum to get them back into form.

If anything, Shane Watson should have been dumped for Dominic Cork.

Anyways, Day’s 1 and 2 have seen a pendulum of momentum ebbing and flowing like a see-saw.(take that feng shui Buchanan)..

The Blues failed to put on a monumental total in their first dig due to some excellent bowling from Side Siddle who looked menacing and Dirty Dirk Nannes who shaved especially for the final yet still had a main by the end of Day 1.

Jaques looked shaken early on but composed himself for a free flowing 50, albeit one that took 100 balls to get his eye in before it started to flow freely. Katto also looked good and will be dissapointed at having scooped one to mid-off off that leggie with the Zimmer frame. Haddin too was looking pretty comfortable and will be dissapointed to have fallen to a ripper from Siddle late in the day. Could have struck him outside the line, probably not but maybe.

We did manage a competitive score of 281 but after winning the toss and with the pitch already deteriorating a total of 400+ could have taken the game out of Mexican reach. Highlight for the Victorians would be Cameron White bowling his first maiden in Test Cricket – 3 overs, 1 maiden, 0/9.

The Vics had a real chance to impose a first lead, though some inspired fielding from Thornley broke up the openers just when things were starting to turn their way. Both form batsmen got starts and a first innings lead was looking like a real possibility, till Hodge left a ripper from Macgilla to be bowled.

Some will claim PM Hussey was a little unlucky, and I’d agree – any poor bastard who has to leave their native Perth to get a game of cricket cause the Warriors are so stacked with NSW and Zimbabwean rejects and ends up having to play for Mexican’s has it coming to them.

Once the tail was exposed Katto gave the ball to Binga and told him Dirty Dirk had been sweet talking Bingers. Don’t quite know why he bothered swinging it though, seemed the straight one took all the wickets.

The battle of Australia’s two best leggies will prove an interesting tussle, though I’m expecting Macgilla to take full advantage of the 5th day conditions.

There’s some low cloud around today that should suit the Mexican’s, don’t think anyone’s told Hughes about that though. He’s 42 off 32 and the see saw is pointing North of the border.

Here’s to a 400+ lead.