I could wait until tomorrow and examine pictures of the pitch while stroking my chin and warbling about humidity and player comfort levels, but instead I think I might just see what the groundsman has to say. In summary, the pitch is green, but has not been too badly effected by the recent heavy rain and should be a good one.
It also seems that Ricky Ponting does want to bat, no matter how green the wicket might be:
"We feel it's about time that we really got a big first innings total," Ponting told his match-eve press conference on Wednesday.
"We've batted well without nailing down that big score we've been after, so we've spoken about that and we're hoping to be able to do that as well.
"We are going to be very aggressive right through this series as we were in India."
Ponting indicated that if the toss were to go his way he would bat first to try and dictate the tempo and direction of the match.
"Generally, Australian teams like to bat first and the wicket will offer some assistance early tomorrow morning, especially if the weather stays humid, the ball should seam around a bit," he said.
"Teams batting first here generally do pretty well so hopefully the coin comes down for me the right way tomorrow. The conditions here generally suit Australian teams more than opposition teams, it's a great venue for us to start our season."
In team news Brett Lee has been made 12th man for Australia while New Zealand are still dithering. I am picking McMillan will come in for Marshall and that Butler will be the unlucky pace man to miss out in favour of Oram, Franklin and Martin.
So what chance have we got of victory? The groundsman seems to think Australia are going to crush us and the bookies seem to agree - they have made us 17/2 long-shots and the Aussies 1/2 favourites.
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