FOUR of Australia's Test bowlers reported for duty at the SCG yesterday eager to polish off a South Australia side whose batting depends upon a redoubtable veteran and an impressive novice. Ricky Ponting would have been encouraged by the rapidity with which as his quartet took wickets for NSW on a pitch that seemed placid till Nathan Bracken started bowling his cutters. Glenn McGrath and Brett Lee also showed form and will arrive in Brisbane with plenty of confidence.

Doubtless Bracken was relieved to hear that he had been given another chance after taking five wickets for NSW. Not since the nomination of the new Pope had an announcement been as eagerly awaited. But, then, the contenders were about the same age as the papal aspirants. Bracken, 28, needed to get the nod because his chance might not come again. He is not in the first flush of youth. Indeed he is almost as venerable as Jason Gillespie, who must be reflecting that the time comes in every man's life when he must give way to a bloke of roughly the same age.

Not that the competition for pace bowling places was hot. Despite the academies, camps and rules introduced to protect boys from injury, new fast bowlers are proving as hard to find as that swine Saddam's weapons of mass destruction. Once a hotbed of pace and fury, Western Australia has not produced a fair dinkum paceman for decades and has resorted to importing.

Maybe the pitches are not helping. Australian surfaces have slowed down in the past few years. Last winter England produced faster pitches in a wet country than local curators have been able to prepare in a dry land. As far as juveniles are concerned, cracking skulls and shattering stumps are the main attractions of the genre. Only later in life does the need to take an occasional wicket come into the reckoning. And it is much harder to create mayhem on pitches as slow as the traffic on Collins Street.

Now a seasoned campaigner, Bracken has concentrated on taking wickets. Along the way he has widened his range of skills. Yesterday he bowled swingers with the new ball, trying his luck from both sides of the wicket. His control of length and line was impressive. Apparently he does not like giving runs away any more than McGrath. If Lee's recent performances have been indicative, he has also recognised the relevance of runs. Bowlers generally get meaner as they age. Leg spinners seem to be an exception.

Once the ball was old he switched to cutters delivered with a shortened run and from around the wicket in a manner recalling Tony Greig and Derek Underwood. Medium-pace cutters were all the rage in the age of S.F. Barnes and Monty Noble, but in recent decades have fallen out of favour. Bracken bowls them surprisingly well and could be useful on a crumbling surface. His versatility must have helped to swing the vote in his favour.

Bracken has been undermined by a perception that he lacks tenacity. Respected for his ability, he is suspected of one of cricket's most serious offences, a failing defined in the rooms as "pulling up lame when the going gets tough". Apparently he has improved but, once such a reputation has been attached, a sportsman can eat more chicken heads than Ozzie Osborne and still be regarded as a soft touch.

In truth Bracken does not fit the picture commonly painted of Australian fast bowlers, most of whom have pawed the ground, grown moustaches, spoken with forked tongues and drunk like boiler-workers upon hearing that most lamentable of all cries "last orders!". With his mop of hair and dash, he is more Death in Venice than The Dirty Dozen. He has even been suspected of sensitivity.

If he reproduces the form shown this week, Bracken will play a fair bit this season. He should have been taken to England. Instead he gets his chance against a struggling West Indian side and in conditions likely to suit at least one of his styles. Shane Watson's retention shows that the selectors want to play five bowlers. Accordingly Stuart MacGill and Nathan Bracken will compete for a single place, with the spinner expected to play four matches.

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