Ashes: Australian Newspapers' Verdicts on the Ashes

It may be yet another Australian mind-game to undermine Duncan Fletcher's selection process or, more likely, genuine delight at a talented cricketer getting a deserved opportunity to prove himself, but today's Aussie papers are full of praise for Monty Panesar.

Alex Brown, while discussing Monty's absence from the first two Tests, asks the blunt question: "Where the bloody hell was he?" He then speculates that, but for his omission, the Ashes might have been heading in a different direction. "The sight of Panesar leaving the Waca with the match ball in his keep must have both elated and troubled Fletcher. Had Panesar bloody well been there in Brisbane and Adelaide, this series could have been markedly different."

Having watched Monty's 5-92, Peter Roebuck puts the spinner's success down to hard work and accuracy rather than Warne-like magic: "He is not a genius; does not pretend otherwise. He prefers to send the ball down at pace, harrying and hurrying his opponents. He does not so much flight the ball as curve it. Pinpoint accuracy is his game. In short, he is a disciplined but undimmed professional."

But it isn't just Monty's bowling that grabs the columnists' attention. Robert Craddock in the Courier-Mail reckons the Ashes debutant's enthusiasm lifts the mood of a team that has often looked downcast in this series: "Suddenly, English fieldsmen were smiling again as they chased Panesar on his joyous victory lap of the wicket block."

Of course, England took five wickets without Monty's help today, and four of those came from a revitalised Steve Harmison. "Harmison had recovered his aim, at the Australians' ribcages and above, and the bounce meant wicketkeeper Geraint Jones took some balls above head height," writes Chloe Saltau in the Sydney Morning Herald.

Saltau goes on to scrutinise Matthew Hayden's performance. While England bowled well, the Australian batting performance was underwhelming, and after another middling performance with the bat, Hayden's place in the side is under scrutiny: "With no Test cricket until November after the Ashes, Hayden could be among the Australian batsmen whose positions are reviewed between now and then, along with the contentious No6 spot that Andrew Symonds is yet to grasp after today's effort."

Mike Hussey was the only one of Hayden's team-mates that seriously troubled England, and Peter Marshallsea puts this down to the fact that the players have met before: "It was significant that the Australian who fared best against Panesar was the only man who had had any real experience of him - former county team-mate Michael Hussey."

The only thing that the papers have scrutinised more than Monty's performance is the size of his hands, something they appear to have a minor obsession with. Andrew Ramsey says "Panesar's thumbs-up gesture of conciliation to his team-mates resembled Uma Thurman's over-endowed hitchhiker character from the 1995 indy film Even Cowgirls Get the Blues." Robert Craddock tells us that "Panesar's hands are so big he can comfortably fit three cricket balls into the palms and fingers of each," while Roebuck is bewitched by the spinner's "long fingers".

Finally, though, despite the columnists' effusive praise, Monty still seems unable to shake off his reputation for dodgy fielding, something that Ramsey describes with relish: "The Test was less than 15 overs old when Justin Langer drove firmly to mid-off and Panesar shaped to intercept the ball with all the surety of a nonagenarian trying to cross an eight-lane highway."