Ashes 2021-22: Batting legend Ricky Ponting has criticised the tactics employed by England pacers, especially James Anderson and Stuart Broad during the first innings of the ongoing second Test between Australia and England at the Adelaide Oval. Follow Ashes 2021-22 Live on InsideSport.IN.
Ashes 2021-22: Ricky Ponting hits out at James Anderson and Stuart Broad’s ‘unwillingness to change’
Ponting has pointed out that the veteran England pacers refrained from bowling full and that reduced the wicket-taking opportunities for them. Ponting added that England looked without any plan and not bowling full length deliveries could only reduce the scoring rate.
“Apart from the short-ball plan Stokes executed (on the first day), England didn’t seem to have much of a plan after that,” Ponting told cricket.com.au. “It was run in and bowl back-of-a-length and wait for the Aussies to make mistakes.
“Well, when you’re bowling to two of the top three batsmen in the world, they’re not going to make mistakes. You’ve got to find a way to get them out and change things up.”
“It can also be stubbornness from the bowlers and the unwillingness to change – that’s what it looked like from Broad and Anderson with the new ball yesterday,” said Ponting.
“It was like, ‘No we’ll run in and bowl back-of-a-length, bowl tight, not give them any runs and we’ll strike and before you know it they’ll be three or four down with the scoreboard not going anywhere.
“Well. it didn’t happen and it doesn’t happen very often against good players.
The tactics, however did stop the run flow as Marnus Labuschagne (103 off 305) his his slowest hundred and Steve Smith took 201 balls for his 93. But as many as 3 Australia batsman crossed the 90-run mark.
The former Australia captain recalled how he would set field for Glenn McGrath when the plan was to pitch the ball up and attack the stumps.
“One simple thing we used to do with Glenn (McGrath) when he wanted to pitch the ball up and attack the stumps was instead of having your mid-on and mid-off in really tight and really wide, you drag your mid-on and mid-off straighter and deeper and give them the confidence they’re not going to get hit back down the ground again.
“England all day yesterday had their mid-on and mid-off wide and tight. The bowler straightaway knows then they can’t pitch it up.
“Just little things like that – I don’t know if it’s the bowlers doing that or the captain is doing it.
“The other side to look at it is, because the field is so tight, does that make the bowler bowl back of a length? Or is the fielder in that tight because the bowler is bowling back of a length and wants to save the one?”
Riding on the back of a hundred from Marnus Labuschagne and handy contribution from Steve Smith on Day 2, Australia declared their first innings total on 473/9. Anderson bowled 29 wickets to spend 58 runs and take 2 wickets, while Broad leaked 73 runs in 26 overs to register one scalp.
Further, Ricky Ponting reckoned that England could have used Ben Stokes and not just asked him to bowl short deliveries to the Australia batters. The Australia legend also marked that Mark Wood should have played ahead of “ineffective” Chris Woakes, adding that the move could have given England more variation in their bowling attack.
“It looked to me as if Stokes was given one job, to run in and bowl bouncers ball after ball,” said Ponting. “When he finally got the chance to bowl at a new batsman and pitch the ball he got a wicket second ball to (Cameron) Green.
“Woakes was ineffective again – I’m not sure why they bothered picking him in Adelaide when they’ve got Wood there.
“To me Wood would have given them a lot more variation in their attack and then Stokes could have pitched it up and bowled like a normal seamer, which he’s good at, and Wood could have taken the role Stokes had.
England are on the backfoot after losing two early wickets in the final session of Day 2. At the time of stumps Joe Root and Dawid Malan were in the middle, with England scorecard reading 17/2 in 8.4 overs.
Ashes 2021-22: Ricky Ponting hits out at James Anderson and Stuart Broad’s ‘unwillingness to change’
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