Aussies keep fluffing the big moments

Ricky Ponting used a golfing analogy after the harrowing Test defeat to India in Mohali.

His team have now acquired a reputation not unlike Greg Norman’s.

Once famed for thriving on Test cricket’s “big moments”, Australia are now a side that loses them.

As at Lord’s, The Oval and in Cardiff during last year’s 2009 Ashes, when a handful of poor hours cost them the series, the Australians fell agonisingly short when they had to find a little extra to complete victory.

The hollowness of that feeling, and the fact that it has been repeated numerous times, weighed heavily on Ponting.

“We’ve had a few tight ones, we’ve been in some situations in the last few series, some times we could have won games,” he said.

“That’s really the only thing I’ve been thinking about since walking off the ground - South Africa in Australia last time, first Test in Cardiff in the last Ashes series - there’s a few that I’ve been thinking about already.

“It’s disappointing that we haven’t been able to nail some of those really crucial moments that define champion teams.