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.

Ricky losing Gillies trophy

10. Losing the toss
I’d love to see some stats on how many teams have won in India with a first innings defecit. Batting first is key and each test was controlled by the opening innigns. Losing 3 tosses did put us at a dis-advantage, but we could have overcome this.

9. Stupid and thoughtless Dismissals
If you hit the ball directly to mid-on and run you deserve an uppercut. There really is no excuse for this in test cricket, and Hayden, Ponting and Hussey are all guilty as charged in the 4th test. Other memorable brain farts go to the collapse in Mohail that set up India for a win, some of Haddin’s half-hearted spoon’s directly to fielders, and Clarke’s last over lapses.

8. Team Unity
Ponting’s on field spat with Lee in Mohali was the lowest point of the tour. It sent out a message of dis-unity, bad communication, and a team in crisis. These disputes no doubt often happen when touring, but for fúcks sake keep them behind closed doors.

8. Lacking the killer instinct in Bangaluru
Our run rate was simply too slow in the first test, 2.86 in the first innings was below par but the real lack of intent was blocking out Kumble at the end of Day 4. The pre-declaration slog has been sorely missing from this current baggy green squad, oh how I miss thee. The lack of urgency in the first test led to us running out of time with bad light when we could well have been leading 1-0 going to Mohali.

7. the SG Ball
Despite having Troy Cooley who is widely regarded as the best bowling coach in the business, our bowlers didn’t get the SG Ball to talk until Watson and Krejza achieved enlightenment in the 4th Test. Brendan Julian in an interview with Watson about the Indians bowling the new ball cross-seam after Day 4 Test 1, yet at the end of Test 2 the word was we didn’t realise what they were doing.

6. Ordinary fielding
All the direct hits we are used to have gone fishing. Roy, while missed with bat and ball, it is his presence in the field who’se abscence is hurting us most.

5. The spinner
Cameron White is not a Test standard wicket taking bowler. If we were after a part timer, David Hussey or Shaun Marsh would have been worth a nod, but we already have Shane Watson and Michael Clarke as all rounders. The team was never in need of a number 8 batsman. We needed a spinner, or at least someone who had the potential to become a spinner. The selection of Krejza was dictated by no-one else being in the squad, and turned out brilliantly. However, when McGain went home injured we should have called up another spinner to give us more options. Why didn’t we take 5 spinners over if only to get them some experience? We could probably lend them out to Indian domestic teams then pick whoever is performing.

4. Impotent bowling plans
The Mohali pitch was a road when we bowled and a minefield when we batted, then reverted to a road, then back to a minefield. The Indian bowlers to their credit got movement in the air and off the deck while our boys broke their backs bowling uphill into the wind.

3. Not bowling Simon Katich
Why the hell did Rick only bowl Katich in the third test? In the 40 odd overs of spin on Day 5 of the 1st test Katto could well have made the breakthrough. In the second test our attack was impotent as we waited patiently for Anil to declare, still no Katto. In the third test he finally got a shot and looked dangerous from the first ball. He bought some much needed aggression to the bowling crease and had to be seperated from Gambhir by Billy, then dismissed Ganguly. Perhaps the biggest compliment of all was VVS failing to pick his pearler of an arm-ball. So having finally tried Katich, seen him bowl well in Indian conditions, Rick forgets all about it and gives him just 3 tidy overs in the 1st innings in Nagpur on a wicket on which the Off-Spinners were lethal, surely the left-arm chinaman was worth a bit more of a spell?

2. Stars not firing
An ordinary series from Lee who through a hand injury, food poisoning and generally bad form picked up 8 wickets at 61. Ponting started with 123 then went on to score 143 in his next 6 appearances. Hayden copped some ordinary Rauf’s early on but in truth didn’t wake up until the final innings of the series, by which time Ponting had already surrendered.

1. Píss Poor Captaincy
Ponting had a very poor series in many respects, none more so than after Tea on Day 4. There’s been suggestions of match fixing, and lets be honest, that makes more sense than any of his explanations for taking the foot off. Time for him to concentrate on his batting, give the captaincy to Clarke, Hussey, or…. Warne – he’d probably come back to be captain, especially with an Ashes Series coming up.

Outright Bástard

The future Australian XI did well to restrict the star studded Redbacks outfit to 313 after they won the toss and elected to swing the willow.

A pumped up Bluetongues blew off the demons of losing their 50 Over match off a last ball misfield by scoring 576 runs in reply to the SA total, a superb effort from the pre-pubescent future Baggy Greens against the recently pronounced sane reverse swinging demi-god and “India-Ready” Shaun Tait.. who spectacularly failed to take any wickets at all with the first ball, then managed a massive 1 batsman and 2 bowlers with the second.

So, Day 4 and we were looking at bowling the Redbacks out to add outright victory to our firsts innings points, however Younis Khan has finally shed the jetlag and has been batting most of the day. What’s more he’s now taken the SA total past ours meaning we’ll have to bat again, Bastárd.

Anyways, Roy’s punishment for going on a pre-booked fishing charter instead of the hastily arranged team meeting to discuss the new seating arrangements for the team bus, is that he was sent home from Darwin and back to club cricket.

The current word is that Roy will have to go through a “staged process” to regain his place. Presumably stage 1 is Watson getting injured, Stage 2 is a jihad on James Sutherland, and Stage 3 is a big wad of cash from his IPL connections.

The main contenders for Jaques’ distinguished position of reserve opening batsman are David Hussey, Brad Hodge and Shaun Marsh. If they’re looking for a like for like replacement they’d have to go Shaun Marsh, as he’s the only one who doesn’t play for Victoria. Unforunately Merv seems to have his way with selections at the moment, so we’ll probably see Brad Hodge ferret like head popping around the nets again.

Really we should be sending an SOS for the Son Of Swampy, he’s an awesome opening batsman and deserves a shot on his own merits. Roy will have to wait for his redemption.

I enjoyed giving shit to Merv the tour guide, when he walked past my seats at the Lords in 2005 I drunkedly ranted off in my best Billy Birmingham cum Bill Lawry accent “Merv, Merv, Merv, He’s a hero this man, I love him, I wanna boof him, Hail the great man, Hail”

I was bemused by Merv the radio co-commentator of Sir Henry Blowfield, surely the oddest couple ever put together, yet I listened to this bizzare socialogical experiment and even derived some enjoyment from Merv sledging Blowers.

Now I’m loathing Merv the selector. He keeps picking bloody Victorians, and this time there’s not only a better New South Welsh player who actually has a CA central contract, there’s even a better Queenslander, one who didn’t make the tour, and he also has a central contract, and can bat.

If only there was some way to evaluate the bowling options in Indian conditions on recent form. The easy way would be to look at the Australia A tour to India a few weeks ago, you remember the one run for the purpose of developing and evaluating talent for the upcomming test series.

There was only one innings in which Australia bowled, returning the figures:

Doug Bollinger: 21 overs, 4/59
Peter Siddle: 15 overs, 1/27
Ashley Noffke: 19.4 overs, 1/67

Now to keep it in perspective, I should mention that Siddle’s sole wicket was the number 10. Douggie got the Indian 1, 6, 8 and 9.

Despite looking 35, he is only 27. The old-young man has even secured advanced hair sponsorship so no longer looks like a ballbag, and has something in common with Rick(y). Doug Bollinger should be collecting his baggy green cap today, and Peter Siddle should be collocting a refreshing beverage for Doug, I’d say an Indian Pale Ale but perhaps in this case a glass of Bollinger would be more appropriate.

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.