Ponting relishes any Test

Australian skipper urges his team to continue good start

By Rebecca Syrocki   Last updated: 23rd May 2008   Subscribe to RSS Feed

Ponting relishes any Test

Ponting: Delighted to be back

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Australia captain Ricky Ponting has admitted he is delighted to be back in the longer version of the game after opening the Test series against West Indies with an innings of 158.

Since scoring a century in his last Test appearance in January against India he has been struggling to make scores when focusing on one-day and Twenty20 competition in India.

"The last Test innings I had was a hundred but I struggled through the one-day series and never felt that comfortable and today felt comfortable again," said Ponting after his century in Kingston.

"The start of a Test summer for me is always exciting. Our last overseas Test was nearly two years ago, we haven't played a lot of test cricket. I've been looking forward to putting on the whites again and the green baggy and spending some time in the middle. I got that today.

Bounce

"It's nice to know you have six hours to go out and build an innings. In (Twenty20) sometimes you have got six balls or six minutes."

Ponting's team are in a dominant position heading into the second day despite the skipper being caught with only 11 minutes remaining in the day's play.

"The wicket is pretty good to bat on but as you saw at the end of the day there is a bit of variable bounce there. But I think we are in a really good position," he said.

"But the new ball has been taken, we are four down with 301, hopefully we can build on that with the new ball tomorrow, with the guys to come hopefully we can really push on and make a big total.

"It's important that we don't let today's (work) slip tomorrow. It's about putting two good days together and then we will really be in the box seat," said Ponting.