At the Close of Play. Ricky Ponting
the middle of 1997. The problem was, given that the Frank Worrell Trophy was now in the Australian Cricket Board’s trophy cabinet, there didn’t seem to be an opening. All we could do was make a case to be next in line, and that process began with this tour.
In this regard, I didn’t do myself any harm, going past 50 five times in 12 first-class innings, but the other blokes had a good time of it as well, so I never felt as if I was standing out. A highlight for me came at Worcester, when I scored 103 not out against an attack that included the former Test bowler Neal Radford, but the enormity of the task I faced to make the Test side was underlined in our one-dayer against Surrey at the Oval, when I thought I batted really well to score 71 from 87 balls. Trouble was, at the other end Stuart Law was in sensational form, smashing 163 from just 126 deliveries and in the process making everyone forget I was even out there. There were numerous examples of this happening, where one guy would play really well but another would do something even better. Against Somerset, for example, Shaun Young made an excellent hundred, but Adam Gilchrist hit 122 from 102 balls, reaching his ton with a colossal six. The competitiveness among us would serve us and Australian cricket well for the following decade.
The only downer of the tour for me was that in the six weeks I was in England I never once had the chance to get to a dog track or a racecourse. Sure, I got to see iconic tourist attractions like Buckingham Palace and the Houses of Parliament, and to play at famous grounds like the Oval, Headingley and Edgbaston, but a number of blokes back in Launceston had told me how different and interesting horse and greyhound racing can be in Britain and I wanted to experience it for myself. All I could do, as I tried to find some sleep on the long flight home, was to make a commitment to do all I could to get back to England in the near future, preferably with the blokes I’d been with in the Caribbean, this time as a member of an Australian Ashes touring team.
Practice makes perfect is one of those everyday coaching lines that you hear all the time. But for me it goes one step further than that — perfect practice makes perfect! You have to train as specifically as you can for what you require and do it at an intensity that is as close as possible to match conditions.
For me, cricket has a long way to go to replicate this specific training. We train away from the centre wicket and outfields — on surfaces that are nothing like what we play on during a match. As a batsman preparing in the nets, you are at the end of a wicket that is almost certainly nothing like the centre wicket for the game. You face four or five bowlers — all of different paces and techniques — bowling in an order one after the other with different balls. Again, nothing like what happens in a game, when you face the same bowler with the same ball — for six balls in a row. Bowlers are faced with similar challenges. Many of them are unable to train with their full run-ups, with a full set of different balls to replicate different times in a game, no field placements to bowl to, and most bowlers are limited to the number of balls they will bowl in training to protect their capacity for a game.
I had a saying ‘train hard and play easy’ that summed up the need for more specific training. I think this was one of the reasons we weren’t at our best in the 2005 Ashes series, where we lacked the specific training we required. We certainly fixed that for the 2006–07 Ashes series, where I demanded that Brett Lee, Glenn McGrath and Jason Gillespie bowl new balls at full pace at me in the nets, day in and day out. The bouncers, movement and sheer intensity of those training sessions helped us all and was a part of the foundation for our 5–0 whitewash of England in that series.
Fielding practice has certainly come a long way since my early days in cricket and it’s as specific today as ever. Most days you now get on the outfield of the ground you are playing on. You can replicate a whole range of typical game situations from catching to runs-outs and throws. I had a set routine as part of my one-day training, where I had someone hit balls to me at backward point or extra cover, and I would field the ball and get it into the stumps as quickly as possible. I also had a variation of this where I would attempt to throw down the stumps at either end of the ground. I did tens of thousands of repetitions of this, at high intensity, and it certainly was perfect practice that made perfect.
AT THE START of the 1995–96 season, Justin Langer and I were at the front of the queue to get into the Australian Test team if an opportunity came up, but Stuey Law was one of a number of gifted batsmen who were close behind. Of all of us, he was the one who started the season best in the early Shield and Mercantile Mutual one-day games. Then in early November, I finally found some form in a Shield game at Bellerive against Stuey’s Queensland, scoring 100 and 118, but he replied with a stylish 107 in their second innings. At the same time, poor Lang could hardly score a run for WA, until he cracked a second-innings 153 in Adelaide.
It was that old, quiet battle again, all the fringe players pushing each other.
Australia was involved in three Tests against Pakistan, and as that series unfolded concerns grew about the form of the Australian batting order, with most attention being on David Boon and Greg Blewett, who were struggling. In the third Test, which Pakistan won by 74 runs, Boonie and Blewey both missed out, while at the same time I made some big runs against the touring Sri Lanka, whose three-Test series against Australia was due to begin at the WACA on December 8. First, I scored 99 in a one-dayer at Devonport and then 131 not out in Tasmania’s first innings of a four-day game against the tourists at the NTCA ground in Launceston with Test selector Jim Higgs watching. I was a little lucky, to be honest, as I had been dropped on 14. The media believed Blewey was gone for the opening Test against the Sri Lankans, and I was the obvious option to take his place. Then it was announced that Steve Waugh was out because of a groin strain, which seemed to make my selection even more likely.
THE DAY BEFORE THE TEAM was announced, the Examiner ran a back-page headline which shouted: ‘Pick Ponting!’ Inside, it pointed out that if I was selected it would be the ‘best 21st birthday present he could wish for’, because the Test was due to start on December 8, which was 11 days before I would turn 21. The next day, the front-page banner headline was more exuberant: ‘He’s Ricky Ponting, he’s ours … and HE’S MADE IT!’
Underneath was a big photograph of me giving Mum a kiss, while the accompanying story began: ‘Tears of pride welled in Lorraine Ponting’s eyes yesterday as she told of how her son Ricky had always said he would play Test cricket for Australia.’
The Test side was named on the last day of Tassie’s game against Sri Lanka, and that photo of Mum and me was snapped just before the news was announced over the PA system at the NTCA ground. There was something a bit special about learning of my promotion at my home ground with family, some of our closest friends and my Shield team-mates there to share the moment with me. Mum was never keen to watch me play — after I failed a couple of times when she was there, she started thinking her presence might be the cause — so when I saw her in the grandstand when I walked off the field I figured something must have been up. She ran down to meet me at the gate and was the first to tell me I’d been picked for Perth along with Stuart Law. It would be Stuey’s first Test as well.
Unfortunately, Dad was working, rolling the pitch at Scotch Oakburn College (Ian Young had teed up that groundsman job for him), but we caught up at home that evening and then, when the phone finally stopped ringing for a minute, the whole family dashed out for a celebratory dinner. After that, I raced over to the greyhound meeting at White City, where I met up with a few mates. It wasn’t a late night, but it was a beauty — everyone at the track seemed to know that Tasmania had produced another Test cricketer and I was overwhelmed by the number of people who came up to wish me all the best.
Inevitably, there were plenty of well-meaning individuals who wanted to give me advice. I’m not sure who suggested I get a haircut (probably Mum), but I did as I was told. Of all the suggestions offered, a couple stand out, not so much because of the advice offered but who was giving it: Uncle Greg told me to ‘stick to what you know