AUS vs ENG: England Have Dominated But Still Haven't Been Good Enough - Ricky Ponting On England

Former Australian cricketer Ricky Ponting shared his verdict on England’s Bazball approach in the ongoing Ashes 2023. He admitted that Ben Stokes-led side have dominated certain parts of the game but it still haven’t been good enough to get their nose ahead in the series.

England suffered a major blow in the series as the fourth Test of the series at Manchester was washed away due to the rain. This led to Australia retaining the Ashes despite the hosts dominating the visitors on the three days of the game before rain played spoilsport.

England had made a brilliant comeback in the series after being bogged down in the first two games. But unfortunately, the rain gods didn’t support them as they had a golden chance to win the Ashes. The series stands at 2-1 with one last game to be played.

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England’s Bazball approach has entertained many in the series. They have played a fearless brand of cricket but at times have committed mistakes as well which cost them crucial moments in the first two games of the series in Edgbaston and Lord’s.

Ricky Ponting said that England haven’t been as smart as they could have been as he pointed out the declaration in the first Test followed by first innings batting in Lord’s as poor decisions by them. Ricky Ponting also lauded them for their batting in Manchester. Speaking to ICC, Ricky Ponting said:

“Some of those decisions – the Edgbaston declaration, Lord’s first innings batting – I think they got a little bit carried away with it then. One thing that hasn’t probably been spoken enough about though is … they have spoken about the right time and the right place to play that brand of cricket and they want to have aggressive cricketers and attacking cricketers, but they want to have smart cricketers as well.

“I think a couple of times they just probably haven’t been as smart as they could have been. Day two at Manchester was just unbelievable cricket. Zak Crawley, 189 off 182 balls, and Joe Root, almost a run-a-ball, what’d he make, 80-odd. It was some of the most entertaining and demoralising Test match cricket that I’ve probably ever seen.”

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AUS vs ENG: They’ve Dominated But Still Hasn’t Been Good Enough To Get Their Nose In Front – Ricky Ponting On England

Ricky Ponting further went on to say that England can be proud of what they are trying to achieve but pointed out that despite dominating they are 2-1 down and cannot win the series. Ricky Ponting explained:

“And that’s why it’s nice to be a part of, but at the end of the day, they’re 2-1 down, they can’t win the series, and as much as they’ve dominated, say they’ve dominated certain parts of the game, it still hasn’t been good enough to get their nose in front of the series.”

“England can be very proud of what they’re trying to achieve and what they’re trying to do. You know, so many kids at the ground, so many kids enjoying Test cricket, families there enjoying it – people that are not necessarily huge Test match fans are sending messages through to everyone talking about how good it’s been to watch this sort of style of play.”

The fifth and final Test of Ashes 2023 will be played from 27th July at The Oval in London. It’ll be an opportunity for England to take out their agony of rain and level the series.

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