Ashes 2019: Ricky Ponting Takes a Dig at England’s Batting

Although England have registered a nail-biting win over Australia on the back of Ben Stokes‘ heroics in the third Ashes Test, there are plenty of loopholes in their batting order. Former Australia captain Ricky Ponting described the win as “woeful” even though it was their greatest ever successful run chase.

“I think England has got as many questions to answer as Australia,” Ricky Ponting said to The Unplayable Podcast after the third Test. “Their batting has looked woeful.”

“Certainly their top order batting has looked poor and Jos Buttler is battling away, playing as a specialist batsman and batting at No.7 and offering very little so far so they’ve got some questions to answer too,” he added.

England’s playing XI are not in sync. Their shuffled batting order has seen Jos Buttler slip down the order from No.5 to No.7. That is below Ben Stokes and wicketkeeper-batsman Jonny Bairstow, especially with an average of 9.16 for the series.

Not only Buttler but Joe Root and Joe Denly also failed to do well in the series so far. Even opener Jason Roy failed miserably. He averages 42.79 in ODIs but just 16.75 in the Test. He is also yet to score big in the longer format of the game.

“It’s just a different game,” Ricky Ponting said of Jason Roy switching from white ball to red ball. “We’ve seen hundreds of players through time that have been able to dominate a white ball and then as soon as the ball changes colour they’ve got no idea. There have been a few. Jason Roy is probably exactly the same,” added Ponting.

He further added, “It’s almost like they have to have everything go exactly right for them just to survive in the game.”

Ricky Ponting, however, gave the example of England opener Rory Burns after he scored 133 at Edgbaston.

“He played and missed 45 times,” Ponting said. “I don’t care how much the wicket does. All these things that they do wrong is just enough to survive in the game. The class players, they can do a lot of things wrong and still make runs. You see so many mistakes made by players, and I think Jason Roy will be a little bit like that.”

The fourth Test of five-match Test series will begin from September 4 at Emirates Old Trafford, Manchester.