Headingley Test, Day 1, Close
Thursday, August 16, 2001 Ricky Ponting has played a fine innings. He started totally out of touch, but he wanted to hit the ball – wasn't shy, wasn't scared – and he hit his way back to form. This was triggered by England feeding him the pull-shot. It was a reasonable tactic to start with, but they never readjusted their aim and continued to feed him. They just bowled too short.

On the other hand I don't think they bowled short often enough at Mark Waugh. He's back in the supporting role he played in the first and second Tests. Later on England bowled better at him, and stymied his attacking shots, but he's been circumspect and watchful, which is just what Australia needed.

As you can probably tell, I don't think England have bowled well today. They have been patchy once again, and just haven't bowled in the right areas often enough or for long enough. I know they had a very firm plan of where to bowl, but they didn't execute it. Basically they didn't bowl full enough – Andrew Caddick bowled two great overs when he pitched it up and had the batsmen in all sorts of trouble, but that was about it.

I don't think Robert Croft would have made much difference. I didn't mind the team England went in with, and I don't suppose Croft would have posed too many problems to the Australians. Alan Mullally, who has bowled pretty tightly so far, is basically England's spinner in this match – he's the man who's going to be keeping one end bottled up.

Ian Healy made a record 395 dismissals in 119 Tests for Australia, and was on the winning side in the last six Ashes series. His comments will appear on Wisden.com at the end of every session for the rest of the series. He was talking to Steven Lynch

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