Ponting has his eye on Panesar

Monty Panesar's exploits this summer have caused sufficient interest in Australia for Ricky Ponting to burn the midnight oil and watch him against Pakistan.

And as England named an unchanged squad for this Thursday's fourth and final Test at The Oval the Australia captain admitted that he has been impressed by what he has seen.

Captain Ponting believes the left-arm revelation would be selected ahead of veteran spinner Ashley Giles, but is confident his team-mates will be able to cope with the threat posed by Panesar.

"But at other times, we won't be able to be. We'll try to make some sort of impact on him early on, hopefully a positive one, and we don't let him get on top of us."

"The left-handers, especially Justin (Langer) and Matty (Hayden), the way they generally play spin is to be fairly aggressive," Ponting told The Sunday Age.

Ponting said: "He has got this cult figure behind him but more important he's actually doing the job on the field.

"He's got good, subtle changes of pace and, watching the other night (against Pakistan), a really good arm ball as well. A lot of the Englishmen over the years have been guilty of firing in the ball a bit too fast and you can see with him he uses the air a lot more.

"He didn't look like he was scared to throw the ball up a little bit and actually try and get you out," Ponting said.

"He's probably a more attacking bowler than Giles was, and a wicket-taking option for them, more so than Giles was," he said.

"His fielding and batting might need a bit of work and I'm sure the Australian crowds will let him know about that."

Panesar was in a party of 12 announced in which the selectors resisted bringing in Leicestershire's much-trumpeted Stuart Broad.

Matthew Hoggard expects to recover from a sore knee and selectors' chairman David Graveney said that keeping a winning momentum was priority.

Broad can, however, expect a call-up for the one-day series against Pakistan along with Darren Gough.

England: Strauss, (cpt) Trescothick, Cook, Pietersen, Collingwood, Bell, Read (wkt), Mahmood, Hoggard, Harmison, Panesar, Lewis.