Former Australian Captain Ricky Ponting takes a dig at England’s Bazball batting approach and pointed out some crucial observations during the last ongoing Ashes Test between England and Australia at the Kia Oval.
The ongoing Ashes 2023 series has been quite challenging for the England Team with them currently trailing 2-1 as they head into the 5th Test. One thing that stands out throughout the series, including the first day of the 5th Test at The Oval, is England’s struggle with their batting, which has contributed to their losses in the earlier Tests.
On Day 1 at The Oval, England faced yet another batting collapse. They had a promising start with a score of 62/0, but unfortunately, they lost three wickets rapidly, leaving them at 73/3 by the end of the first session.
They managed to stabilize their innings and reached a score of 184/3, but then another collapse occurred, and their score dropped to 212/7. By the Tea break, England’s score was 250/7 in 50 overs.
Ricky Ponting pointed out that England’s aggressive “Bazball” approach might be one of the reasons behind these collapses.
“250/7 and there were 40 overs to go in the day. 5 runs and over again. That’s what we are starting to expect, isn’t it? They’ve been slow today compared to last week in Manchester,” Ponting said speaking to Sky Sports at Tea.
“Yes, it’s been a refreshing bit. We talked about the collapses. I think we can expect that with the way England are playing. We can expect that with a little bit of movement [for bowlers], the lights being on, a couple of good balls here and there – and there’s their free-flowing style, I think we need to get used to those collapses happening” he further added
“But, the thing that happens is, when you are scoring freely, those collapses don’t make that much of a dent on the scoreboard as they normally would. I mean if you have a collapse of 3/11 and 4/28 and you are not scoring, then you are 7/100.”“But, they keep the game going forward, and we are just over halfway through the day’s play and 250 runs are scored. It’s got to a point that with the conditions the way they are, Australia won’t be that keen to get out there and bat tonight. If they do bowl them out, it’s going to be challenging batting conditions for Australia,” Ponting concluded.
