Australia playing it cool over Ponting fitness concerns

AUSTRALIA are confident their captain Ricky Ponting will be fit for the St Stephen’s Day Ashes Test.

Ponting only took part in a light fielding practice session yesterday, and has yet to test his broken finger with a bat in his hand.

But he said just the day after fracturing a bone in his left little finger during his team’s Ashes series-levelling victory in Perth that he expected to be recovered in time to face England again at the MCG.