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Aussies getting older

Afp, Sydney
Impatient batting, sloppy fielding and Ricky Ponting's inferior captaincy have Australia on the brink of coming home from England without cricket's Ashes, Australian media said Sunday.
As the Australians struggled to avoid defeat in the third Old Trafford Test and fall behind 2-1 in the series with two Tests to play, local media are focusing on what has gone wrong with the one-time dominators of world cricket.
The Sunday Telegraph summed up the prevailing mood, when it said: "The cricket world officially turned upside down last night (Saturday) when Australia prayed for rain to save themselves from defeat against England."
All the cockiness and arrogance of a predicted 5-0 series drubbing has been replaced by anxiety that the Ashes are slipping away.
Australia's top-order batsmen
have been targeted as the weak link with statistics revealing that no Australian batsman has batted for longer than 154 balls in an innings in the two-and-a-half Tests so far.
"Most of blame for Australia's Ashes crisis lies squarely at the feet of the batsmen. They have had the series from hell," The Sunday Telegraph's Robert Craddock wrote.
"England have four batsmen with 190 or more runs in the series. Australia have none. Enough said. Australia's impatient batsmen have lost the knack of playing the long innings required.
"The batsmen have become conditioned to playing feeble Test attacks and they have had trouble absorbing constant pressure from both ends by England's high-class five-man attack."
Australia's deteriorating fielding has also been highlighted as a glaring weakness with England doing their homework on the each individual Australian batsman's favoured shots.
"They have tried to plug Matt Hayden's off-drive, Adam Gilchrist's
cut, Justin Langer's nudge off the hip and his square drive. They have tried to challenge Australia's ego and so far it has worked," the Sunday Telegraph said.
The Sun Herald praised England's fielding while describing Australia's outfielding as "leaden".
"The ageing Australians have been timid between the wickets and sluggish in the field, while England have been alert," the Sun Herald's analyst Peter Roebuck said.
"Australia have dropped umpteen catches, behind the wickets and close to the bat. The outfielding has been leaden."
While there has been praise for bowlers Shane Warne, Brett Lee and Glenn McGrath, badly out-ofform paceman Jason Gillespie has been written off by the Australian press.
And there has been strong criticism of Ponting's leadership in comparison to England's captain Michael Vaughan.
"The series might well have been effectively over if captain Ricky
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Ponting had batted first in the second Test," The Sunday Telegraph said.
"Almost certainly it cost Australia the match. Because the decision was so poor, it upset the mood and mindset of some Australian players."
Roebuck opined that Vaughan has "outthought and outplayed his counterpart" in the series.
"Ponting has been unable to impose himself as a batsman or as a leader," he said.