The former Australian captain Ricky Ponting has slammed the current England captain Joe Root for his post-match comments in the aftermath of the second consecutive defeat in the ongoing Ashes series.
After England lost the day-night test match at Adelaide by a humongous margin of 275 runs, Joe Root said that his bowlers bowled the wrong lengths on the first day of the game. They should have been fuller in length, but they bowled short instead and made it easier for the Australian batsmen.
Joe Root talked about the second innings where the England bowlers got much better results and they did so by bowling full, rather than banging the ball halfway down the pitch. Root was of the opinion, if his bowlers had done it on the first day itself, England’s position in the game would have been different.
Root’s comments were surprising for everyone because he himself was the captain when England set a leg-side field for shorter lengths on the first day and bowled exactly according to that. Halfway through the first day of the game, the Poms had three fielders in the deep on the leg side and the line of attack was into the body of the batsmen, which was a clear indication that they were trying to bounce the batsmen out.
Ricky Ponting can’t believe Joe Root is not able to influence England bowlers
For Root to come out after the game and say England should have bowled fuller on the first day, it clearly means the field that was set on the first day was not what Root wanted and even the line and the length that was bowled was something he was not in favour of. Then how did the England bowlers bowl with that gameplan, if the captain didn’t want it?
According to Ricky Ponting, if a captain can’t influence the bowlers what kind of areas to bowl, what is the point of him being the captain? At the end of the day, the captain is in charge of the team and the bowler has to do what the captain wants. If the bowler is not ready to do that, it’s the authority of the captain to just remove the bowler from the attack.
“If you can’t influence your bowlers on what length to bowl, what are you doing on the field? Why are you captain, then?” Ponting said while talking to cricket.com.au about Joe Root’s comments.
Ricky Ponting is not the first big-name who has criticised Joe Root’s leadership in recent weeks. The England skipper has already received quite a bit of criticism from Brendon McCullum and Ian Chappell for not being inspirational enough to his players.
