Ashes 2021-22: Ricky Ponting slams Joe Root and England team after poor performance in Test series

After England lost to Australia in the third Test of the Ashes at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG), former Australian player Ricky Ponting slammed the English team for their poor planning and structures Ponting has become the latest addition to the ever-growing list of critics that England captain Joe Root is facing after his team’s dismal performance in the ongoing series. [caption id=“attachment_8804531” align=“alignnone” width=“640”]  File image of Ricky Ponting. Reuters[/caption] Australia have an unassailable 3-0 lead in the five-match series, winning all their matches so far comfortably. England lost the Boxing Day Test by an innings and 14 runs after they were swiped for a meagre 68 on Day 3. England had lost the first Test by nine wickets at Brisbane and the second Test by 275 runs in Adelaide, respectively. Stating that he had never seen “a worse-performing team in Australia”, Ponting, speaking to cricket.com.au, said that that “You wind the clock back a few years ago when we had our struggles in England, we changed conditions, we changed the ball, we changed everything because we were poor in those conditions.” “England might need to have a look at how they can make their conditions more suitable to ours. They play well in England still but they don’t play well when they come here – so maybe they play more with the Kookaburra ball. Maybe they flatten the wickets out a little bit so there’s not as much swing and seam, so the batters are making bigger scores and batting for longer periods of time. It might be the exact same blip that (Australia) had to have three or four years ago,” he added. Apart from Joe Root and Dawid Malan, most English batters have struggled in the series against the Australian bowlers. Ponting also questioned the technique of the England batters. “Some of the English top-order batters that I’ve seen in the last couple of tours, without giving names, there’s some techniques there that I just know are not going to stand up at Test level. In challenging conditions and world-class bowlers up against sub-standard techniques, then you get what happened today (at the MCG),” added Ponting. “The little swing dibbly-dobblers that are getting them out over there (in county cricket), they’re not facing that at Test level. They’re facing guys who can actually bowl. What I’ve seen with their batting, they’re just simply not good enough.”