Punter back in the groove
Former skipper is confident SCG ton will revive batting career
Australian batsman Ricky Ponting said he was confident his century against India in Sydney last week would signal the start of a revival in his batting career.
Ponting, the third highest run-scorer in Tests behind India's Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid, scored 134 in Sydney, his first hundred since he made 209 against Pakistan two years ago in Hobart.
“I've had to work really hard with my game the last few months and I felt that I made a bit of progress the last few weeks,” Ponting, 37, told reporters on Wednesday, two days before the start of the third Test.
"I think the biggest challenge for me was the technical flaws that I've been working on and getting enough quality time in the middle and starting to feel that bit more free again and I feel my rhythm is starting to come back in my batting.”
The former captain said he felt as comfortable as he had done for a long time during the Sydney Test, which Australia won to go 2-0 up in the four-Test series.
"...I think the start of day two, was probably as free as I've felt in a long time," he said. "The way that I moved, hit most of the balls in the middle... so when you're making as few mistakes as I did for the last half of that innings, then you can start to take some confidence from that.
“It has been a work in progress for a while... It was nice to spend a bit more time in the middle in Sydney and make that hundred that I have been pushing so hard for.”
Ponting said he had been struggling with a few technical issues which caused him to get out lbw on a number of occasions.
“It was all about my initial movement and my balance. They're the only things I've been working on really for the last few months,” Ponting said.
“I've done a few different drills that I've incorporated into my game now that I've never had to do before.
“I was in probably a rut technically that I hadn't been in right through my career. I had to have a really close look at things and break things down and try and find the best and simplest way to address it and fix it.
“I'm not sitting here saying that I'm completely on top of my game but I know very well that I'm not far off.”
Ponting has scored 40 Test hundreds and 30 in one-day-internationals. “Confidence is everything in our game as we all know and understand,” he said. “But I'm not going to rest on one hundred.
“I've said it for a while now that if I got to those three figures then hopefully it’s the start of something big for me again, so that's the way I'm looking at it.”
