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Precautionary x-rays may decide whether or not Ricky Ponting is able to captain Australia in the Boxing Day Ashes Test after he injured a finger late on day three of the third Test in Perth.
The Australians are poised to achieve parity in the series having reduced England to 5-81 in pursuit of 391 for victory, but their celebrations were tempered somewhat by the sight of Ponting rushing off the field for treatment after he parried an edge from Jonathan Trott that was caught by Brad Haddin.
There appeared to be genuine concern from Ponting about his hand, and paceman Peter Siddle said he had been rushed to hospital for further assessment.
“There was a bit of swing there after the edge and it’s clipped him on the little finger on the left hand,” said Siddle.
“He’s a little bit sore at the minute, he’s gone for a precautionary x-ray at the moment, he’s feeling upbeat but just wanted to get it checked out.
“From all reports it seem all right.”
Should a break be uncovered, Ponting would almost certainly miss the final two Ashes Tests at Melbourne and Sydney, likely handing the captaincy reins to his deputy Michael Clarke at a vital time for Australian cricket.
Given Clarke’s long and arduous apprenticeship, his current paucity of runs and the extremely tight circumstances of the current series, it would be a sizeable test of the vice-captain’s leadership skills.
In his favour would be the fact that England seem to be tiring mentally and physically after the exertions of the first three Tests, and it was a bunch of worn down batsmen who surrendered their wickets on the third evening.
Siddle said the Australians aimed to keep them out in the field for as long as possible.
“It’s a long series no matter what and it’s tough work, it’s Test match cricket, an Ashes series so it’s always a lot of extra work on the body,” he said.
“We’ve actually had a match here where we’ve kept them out there a bit, it was a wicket for the quicks and they did have to bowl a lot of overs all three of them, and it is a lot of pressure on them.
“That was the plan, we knew if we could keep them out there as long as possible, we would’ve liked to keep them out there for a bit longer, but keep the pressure on and keep working them over.
“It is very tiring, hard enough getting through five days of Test cricket let alone a couple back to back, so hopefully we’ve put a bit of damage into them after this match and we’ll see how they back-up in the next two.”
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