Former Australia captain Ricky Ponting feels Ben Stokes would not appear to be the sort of “physically aggressive” presence that opposition groups feared due to his “ultra-defensive approach” within the ongoing Ashes sequence.
Ponting additionally criticized England captains Joe Root, Stokes and Jos Buttler for the style wherein they had been dismissed within the first innings of the Boxing Day Test, which the two-time World Cup-winning captain believed was “unforgivable”. . England are down 0-2 in marquee efficiency amongst conventional rivals.
“He’s looking over-defensive. He didn’t look like the big, physically aggressive presence at the crease that opposition teams were afraid to bowl to in other series,” Ponting instructed cricket.com.au.
“You can understand why – the batting position hasn’t been easy in any game and he’s coming up against some really good bowlers,” he added.
Ponting believes that Stokes ought to transfer away from the conservative method to serving to struggling vacationers.
“But I feel when you simply sit again and wait, and do not put stress on nice bowlers, they’ll get you out. We all the time used to say in groups that I performed in that the higher the bowler, the higher the batsman. You must take extra dangers as you simply do not get unhealthy balls.
“You’ve got to find a way to jump over anything that’s a little bad, swing the strike as hard as you can.” Entering the third Test, England reshuffled their high order, bringing in Zack Crawley and Jonny Bairstow rather than Ollie Pope and Rory Burns. But the Tourists had been bowled out for simply 185 runs after coming to bat on the primary day of the Boxing Day Test.
Ponting feels that the poor efficiency of fellow England batsmen has put extra stress on Stokes.
“He’s probably going into the game knowing that it’s so important that he scores that number five slot that he’s putting in a little bit of effort,” Ponting mentioned.
“The backside line with that is that technically he might be their second greatest, so you possibly can’t maintain pushing him down the record once you’re batting guys with shoddy approach forward of him.
“And if you look at everyone outside Joe Root, I’d say he’s technically their second best player.” Ponting criticized Stokes, Root and Buttler and mentioned senior gamers have to rise to the event.
“(It) was unforgivable on your three extra senior gamers, the gamers they wanted to face behind, which we imagine had been some very harsh discussions after the Adelaide sport.
“If your leaders aren’t going to do this, you possibly can’t anticipate younger individuals to get the job accomplished.
“Young players are going to learn from senior players and when senior players are setting such examples, you can understand why some youngsters are also making mistakes,” he mentioned.
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With inputs from TheIndianEXPRESS
