Australia win toss and chose to bat

Fri, Dec 03 10 06:07 AM

ADELAIDE - Australia captain Ricky Ponting won the toss and chose to bat first in the second Ashes test against England at the Adelaide Oval on Friday.

Australia replaced the dropped Mitchell Johnson with Doug Bollinger and their fellow fast bowler Ben Hilfenhaus was also left out in favour of Ryan Harris.

Bollinger and Harris both make their Ashes debuts in the revamped Australian pace attack alongside Peter Siddle, who took six wickets and hat-trick in the first test.

"Ryan Harris grew up here and played a lot of cricket in Adelaide and knows these conditions, he's the sort of guy that can stand the seam up and hit the wicket hard so hopefully he can have an impact for us here," Ponting said.

"We just feel that making the changes we have will give us the best chance of taking 20 wickets in Adelaide."

England were unchanged from the team that batted for two days to save the first of the five Ashes tests in Brisbane earlier this week.

England captain Andrew Strauss said he was not too concerned about losing the toss despite Adelaide being such a batting-friendly wicket.

"Evidence here suggests it's not a massively important toss to win," he said. "The wicket stays good for the first three or four days.

"The important thing is that if there is any life in the wicket this morning we take advantage of it. Get two or three Australian wickets and put some pressure on them."

Teams:

Australia - Shane Watson, Simon Katich, Ricky Ponting (captain), Michael Clarke, Mike Hussey, Marcus North, Brad Haddin, Doug Bollinger, Ryan Harris, Peter Siddle, Xavier Doherty.

England - Andrew Strauss (captain), Alastair Cook, Jonathan Trott, Kevin Pietersen, Paul Collingwood, Ian Bell, Matt Prior, Stuart Broad, James Anderson, Steve Finn, Graeme Swann.

Source: Published>