Steve Waugh was a good captain. Ponting was not. Get over it.

Looks like Barossa is off. Adelaide is kind of nice. Lots of bogans and baseball caps.

Steve Waugh was actually an extremely good captain and had arguably the best team of all team mainly at their peak - McGrath, Warne, Ponting, brothers Waugh, Gilchrist, Hayden, Langer which is enough to rival any team from any country of any era. If you read his autobiography you will see that he expected to get the sack after about 20 tests.

Ponting presided over, near the end of his career, the demise of himself and the retirement of most of the above. He has more test wins than any other Aussie captain in history; not as good a % as S Waugh but much better than the touted AB, Taylor and throw in Clarke and Smith if you want. Don't confuse good blokes or more presentable with results.

Ponting was a good captain. Get over it.

I suspect being a Pom that you watched the success of the above players and change over to being an Aussie by some family connection but Ponting wasn't as successful near the end as Waugh was so you've thrown the dummy out of the pram as a result. I was following Ponting's success a long time before you joined the bandwagon.

Zzzzzzzz

Can some just have some balls to bat the pesky Abbott over the stands with his mid 120km/h stuff.

Short shelf life. Loving these green decks just like Jimmy Anderson did back when CA screwed up on the green pitches.

Australistan doing well at this stage. They may actually pull this one off.

Instead of pulling eachother off haha

I have to say, Adelaide Oval is pretty good. Very nice ground to watch cricket in. Big but not too big, close to the action.

The MCG is screwed. Its now ranking 3rd as the premier place to watch cricket in Australia, and with the new Perth stadium not far away, it should be relegated to 4th.

No, they'll still be doing that

This is metrosexual Australia that we're talking about here

zzzzzzzzz They'll have Olympics, Commonwealth Games, tens of millions watch footy and have Boxing Day crowds approaching 100K at these other venues of course. The MCG is among a handful of premier sporting grounds in the world.

It would be interesting to know which of you experts would take the side above to beat the side below?

Watson
Katich
Ponting
Clarke
Hussey
North
Haddin
Harris
Doherty
Siddle
Bollinger

Let's make Steve Waugh captain of the first team and a 36 year Ponting captain of the 2nd team. Alternatively, if Steve Waugh in his prime was captaining the 2nd team do you reckon they'd beat the 1st team?

There's only 9 players listed for the 1st team but probably enough to beat the 11 below.

Or alternatively, nominate which of the below teams both the above named Aussie teams would rather play:

Trescothick
Vaughan
Key
Hussain
Butcher
Stewart
White
Dawson
Caddick
Hoggard
Harmieson


Strauss
Cook
Trott*
Pieterson
Collingwood
Bell
Prior*
Broad
Swann
Anderson
Finn

*before Mitch Johnson had both seeking the psychiatrist's coach

For someone who has only watched test cricket at one ground, you have no idea. Branch out and get a life.

Very evenly positioned test. Wicket is starting bite. I wouldn't want to be batting last on this wicket, and with a swinging pink ball ..... trouble.

This should be interesting.