Cricket: Ponting has early test end in sights

Brendon McCullum. Photo / Getty Images

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New Zealand's 40th and final day of international cricket this summer is set for an early ending.

They will start at 185 for five today, still 294 short of victory. Or, far more realistically, Australia require five wickets to complete a 2-0 series win.

The last pair of recognised batsmen are in, Martin Guptill having fought hard for over an hour and a half for 29; Brendon McCullum with him on 19.

All hopes rest with them as New Zealand can count on little from a tail which starts at next man in.

Still, where there is McCullum there is life.

Having set New Zealand 479 to win when he declared at lunch, Australia's captain, Ricky Ponting, was not exactly living up to his nickname, Punter.

New Zealand's highest fourth innings total in all tests is 451 against England at Christchurch, and that was only down to Nathan Astle's blistering double hundred assault eight years ago.

The best winning effort was 324 for five against Pakistan, also in Christchurch 16 years ago, so the odds on New Zealand chasing down Ponting's bidding were always long.

Ponting could have opted out before lunch, but New Zealand's already long winning odds lengthened with every morning boundary.

Understandably, there was a greater urgency to Australia's batting than on Monday. Marcus North eventually fell 10 shy of back-to-back hundreds in the series.

There was some merry hitting from Brad Haddin before thoughts turned to a New Zealand batting lineup which has not distinguished itself for its stickability this season.

Ponting gave his bowlers five sessions to do the job which, unless Guptill and McCullum perform heroics, will be more than sufficient.

But New Zealand's batting should have been capable of better than they produced in the last four hours yesterday. The pitch is hardly causing brows to furrow, yet five batsmen were dismissed between 19 and 29.

Even allowing for being up against an outstanding operator in Mitchell Johnson, who was hostile and smart in taking the first three wickets, lessons on occupancy of the crease by watching Simon Katich a day earlier were not heeded. Johnson's first wicket, Tim McIntosh, took him to 150 in his 34th international - the quickest to the mark among all left-armers in tests.

The 28-year-old Queenslander is in his prime. He dropped into Baldrick mode last night when talking of the cunning plan to remove McIntosh with the use of a leg gully to throw doubt in the lefthander's mind over what length he would bowl. It worked a treat.

But Johnson, who woke this morning with 23 wickets at 17.26 apiece in his fourth test against New Zealand, appeals as a cautious predictor.

"I think we're a fraction in front," was his assessment of the state of the test, and he delivered it with a straight face.

New Zealand coach Mark Greatbatch was left to bemoan his team having stayed on the pace for 2 days before slipping back.

"We've got to be tougher than that, and hungrier," he said of the batting slump yesterday afternoon.

Wickets fell in clumps.

BJ Watling survived a first-ball lbw referral against Doug Bollinger before edging Johnson, going around the wicket, five overs after McIntosh had been skittled; Ross Taylor, who seemed uncertain of his approach, and Mathew Sinclair, who scrapped for 103 minutes departed within 28 balls; while captain Dan Vettori's lbw trying to sweep offspinner Nathan Hauritz wasn't his deftest stroke of the summer.