Ponting pleased to get on level terms
"It's a chance that I've been waiting for all tour," Ricky Ponting said. "The chance that the whole team has been waiting for.
"After we lost at Lord's we've been wanting to play well and win again to get back to 1-1.
"We needed to win this game to get things back to level pegging.
"I've said from the start how much it would mean to me to win here and it's exactly the same for every other guy on this touring squad at the moment.
"We've been waiting for this moment to come around and now that we've got things back on track and are playing good cricket then we're all very excited about it.
"It's going to be a very special week for us next week."
"I've played as much against these guys as Justin has, so I pretty much knew about their personalities and the way a lot of these guys played," said Ponting.
"I'll admit I got given a copy of it and had a brief read through it all but I knew most of it anyway.
"It was probably more for the younger guys in our group to have a good feel about some of their players.
"I'm sure they all read every single word that was in the document but we haven't sat down in meetings after that and talked about that.
"We've been searching and trying to find ways within our own group to play our best cricket.
"That's been our whole focus the last few weeks and right at the moment that's where I feel we're at.
"I feel the last couple of days of Test cricket here have been the best that we've played this series and given ourselves a blueprint of what we need to do in the next Test."
Tags: Simon Katich , Australia , Test , Sydney , Board , Rickey Ponting , Shah , Cook , Swann , England
