Australia retains No.1 spot

Another frontier taken over

Australia retained number one spot after winning heartbreaking series against South Africa by 2-0. This series has been the revival of Australian team as they have seen some positive performance by some of their players. They have got a positive minded opener batsman in the form of Phil Hughes. Opening slot was looking fussy after the retirement of Mathew Hayden and Justin Langer. More than this, it has got an unmatched pacer in the form of Mitchell Johnson, who has been performing brilliantly in this series. In the absence of Bret Lee, it was difficult task for Johnson to carry the burden of frontline bowler. Now, Australia can depend on Johnson for providing wickets in start of the inning, which was disappeared after the retirement of Mc Grath. Australian can even be proud of Brad Haddin who has been performing truly as an all rounder. He has been performing equally well in batting and behind the wicket.
Australian had seen dump in their performance in last three seasons after retirement of some of their three legends like Mc Grath, Shane Warne, Gilchrist and Mathew Hayden. In this series, they have started looking like a group of performers in the presence of Ponting, Hussey, Clarke, Haddin and Johnson. This win was the need of time for this Australian team as they were totally down after the defeat against South Africa and India. They were defeated convincingly in their courtyard by South Africa and India had won Border-Gavaskar trophy in its soil.
Ricky Ponting would be feeling relaxed as he was under tremendous pressure after defeat against India and South Africa. In the presentation after the win of 2nd test, he said, "We played some amazing Test cricket over the last couple of weeks and a level of cricket that everybody outside of our dressing room thought we weren't capable of. That's been the most satisfying thing for me."
Australia got richer by $1.75 million for retaining number spot in ICC test ranking. Now, it has to carry this momentum till last match to do the clean sweep.