West Indies, Australia First Test
Aussies prefer Bracken over leg-spinner MacGill

BRISBANE (Australia)—Australia have preferred the left-arm swing bowling of Nathan Bracken over playing a second leg-spinner Stuart MacGill for the opening cricket Test against the West Indies at the Gabba here.
Australian skipper Ricky Ponting said Bracken’s past record at the Gabba with his New South Wales state side and the moisture in the pitch gave him the edge over MacGill. “He (Bracken) has got a great record up here and he will bowl well on that wicket,” Ponting said on Wednesday. Ponting said MacGill would be released from his 12th man duties to play in a weekend Sheffield Shield game for New South Wales against Western Australia in Perth.
The West Indies will delay naming their team until later Wednesday with fitness concerns over pacemen Daren Powell and Jermaine Lawson.
Ricky Ponting is working with Michael Clarke to try to make the most of one of the great talents of Australian cricket. Clarke’s star has waned since his 151 in his debut Test against India in Bangalore and the 141 in his first home Test here against New Zealand a year ago.
In his next 17 innings the 24-year-old right-hander, known by team-mates as ‘Pup’, has unable to compile another Test century. Ponting can identify with Clarke. He scored 96 in his first Test against Sri Lanka in Perth in 1995 and the first of his 23 Test centuries in his seventh Test match and has now amassed over 7,000 Test runs.
“I think he’s finding his feet a little bit at Test level,” Ponting said Wednesday before the first Gabba Test with the West Indies. “We know he made a dynamic start and probably the same way that I did at the start. Our careers are following fairly similar paths.
“He’s someone who’s going to be around the team for some time, he’s got immense ability and potential and he’s moved up the order to No.4 spot, he’s working extremely hard on his game. “I’ve done a lot of one-on-one work with him over the last few weeks, talking about the game and working on a few technique side of things with his game.
“We know how good he can be and if he gets his game in order and keeps learning about himself and what he has to do to prepare for Test matches, then you’ll see Michael Clarke make some big runs this summer”. Clarke has been elevated to No.4 in the Australian batting order, coming in after Ponting in the batting and taking the place of discarded Damien Martyn.
Australia: Matthew Hayden, Mike Hussey, Ricky Ponting (Captain), Michael Clarke, Simon Katich, Adam Gilchrist, Shane Watson, Shane Warne, Brett Lee, Glenn McGrath, Nathan Bracken.—Agencies.