Quantcast

'Stubborn' veteran seamers cost England dearly: Ponting

Australian Test legend Ricky Ponting picks apart England's tactics and selection in Adelaide that, while holding the Aussies up, neutered their own best weapons of swing and seam

Ricky Ponting has slammed England's bowling tactics and selection for the Adelaide day-night Test, suggesting their aversion to pitching the ball up may have been a result of their leading bowlers' own stubbornness.

England are staring down the barrel in Adelaide after losing two wickets before stumps on day two in reply to Australia's 9-473 declared, a first innings coloured by polarising strategic thinking from the visiting bowlers.

England were largely unwilling to bowl full in a bid to swing the pink Kookaburra, instead attempting to restrict the hosts' run-rate by bowling either back-of-a-length or (in Ben Stokes' case) extremely short.

It did work in limiting the Aussies' scoring rate in patches; Marnus Labuschagne's century (103 from 305 balls) was the slowest innings of his career, while David Warner (95 off 167) and Steve Smith (93 off 201) were also forced to be patient for long periods.

But Ponting was adamant England needed to be more willing to give up runs to give themselves a chance to take wickets.

"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."

Some defended the ploy; former England skipper Alastair Cook suggested bowling full would have only played into Australia's hands, while CricViz suggested the opening day saw the least amount of swing in a Test down under in seven years.

Smith anchors big total before seamers strike

"The England bowlers have really had to bash away at a length," Cook told BT Sport. "The risk of going fuller is you give the opposition (opportunity) to score more runs."

But Ponting questioned whether captain Joe Root was instructing his bowlers to dig it in, or whether his bowlers – particularly veteran duo Jimmy Anderson and Stuart Broad, who were recalled for this match after missing at the Gabba – were too set in their ways.

"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.

Labuschagne lives dangerously to notch maiden Ashes ton

"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?"

The absence of Mark Wood grew more apparent as Australia's first-innings tally swelled.

Neser's first comes with just his second ball

Root had previously stressed the importance of having variety in his bowling attack, but the decision to rest the injury-prone Wood (who bowled 25 overs in the first Test) and drop their only spinner in Jack Leach saw England go into the match with five right-arm seamers who all bowl a similar pace.

Stokes was given the job as England's enforcer in Wood's absence, a tactic Ponting believed neutered the allrounder somewhat, while questioning the presence of Chris Woakes (1-103 from 23.4 overs) in the side.

"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.

Pink ball king Starc nicks off Burns

"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.

"That's up for them – they've got their own think tank and the ways they think about the game and what they want to get out of their players.

"But it looked like after Plan A didn't work, they didn't have much after that."

Ponting's 'simple fix' for Green's batting: HCL Vantage Point

"The way he's setting up, how open he is with his stance and how open his front is, it looks to me like he's really worried about one dismissal, and that's LBW.

He's not lining his body up, he's not lining his front leg up in line with the ball, trying to keep his left leg out of the way to not get an LBW.

But by doing that he's actually not covering his off stump with either his back foot or his front foot.

You look at the dismissal in Brisbane, he's got that big extravagant back-and-across movement but his back knee and his back pad never gets outside the line of the off stump. Because he's so open, to try and get his front foot outside the line of off-stump, it's such a big stride he actually can't get outside the line.

I think it's a pretty simple fix. Maybe he just squares his stance up before he moves, because then his front foot doesn't have to make as big a move to get back to neutral again."