Ricky Ponting said that Mark Wood had better variations than Chris Woaks which would have been useful with the pink ball and that England didn’t seem to have any plans apart from the short bowling that Ben Stokes stuck to for a while.
HIGHLIGHTS
- Ponting said that England should have picked Mark Wood for the pink ball Test
- He said that England were limited in their plans
- Australia declared on a mammoth 473/9 to pull well ahead of England
England should have picked Mark Wood in place of Chris Woakes for the second Ashes Test as the former has more variations which would have come handy with the pink ball, former Australia captain Ricky Ponting said. Ponting criticised England for what he described as a
“It looked to me as if (Ben) Stokes was given one job, to run in and bowl bouncers ball after ball,” Ponting told cricket.com.au.
“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.
“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.”
Ponting criticised the limited approach taken by England captain Joe Root and his bowling attack.
“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 said.
