Ricky Ponting has lambasted Joe Root’s leadership in the wake of their second Test defeat in Adelaide, suggesting he was not firm enough on strategy with senior players after the England captain revealed his frustration at how his team bowled in the first innings.
The usually mild-mannered Root did not mince his words immediately after Australia completed a 275-run, final-session victory and to take a 2-0 series lead, lamenting that England’s bowlers were making the same mistakes as they did during their 0-4 series defeat in 2017-18.
“I don’t think we bowled the right lengths,” Root said on Monday after the Aussies had piled up 9-473 declared in their first innings of the second Test. “If we’re being brutally honest, we needed to bowl fuller.
“As soon as we did in that second innings, we created chances. We need to do that more, we need to be a bit braver, get the ball up there a bit further because when we do, we’re going to create chances and make life difficult.
“That’s one of the frustrating things because it’s something we did four years ago and got it wrong and we didn’t learn from it. We made the same mistakes last week (in Brisbane) – we just have to be better and we’ve got to learn those lessons very quickly.”
But Ponting, who led the criticism of England’s bowling across the first two days of the Test, told cricket.com.au the buck must stop with Root and suggested he should have issued an ultimatum to his bowlers to bowl fuller or be taken out of the attack.
And while he did not name them, the former Test captain made no bones about his belief that experienced duo Jimmy Anderson and Stuart Broad in particular needed to be told as much.
“I nearly fell off my seat when I heard that,” Ponting said of Root’s post-match comments. “Whose job is it then to make them change? Why are you captain then?
“If you can’t influence your bowlers on what length to bowl, what are you doing on the field?
“Joe Root can come back and say whatever he likes but if you’re captain, you’ve got to be able to sense when your bowlers aren’t bowling where you want them to.
“And if they’re not going to listen, you take them off, simple as that.
“Give someone else a chance that is going to do it for you. Or you have a really strong conversation with them on the field to tell them what you need.
“That’s what captaincy is all about.
“Regardless of whether they have taken (more than) 1150 wickets between them – well, too bad.
“‘I need you to bowl differently here to how you bowl in England, I need you to bowl differently to how you bowled four years ago, and if you’re not willing to do it then I’ll find someone that can’ – that should have been the conversation five overs into day one.
“If they had that (conversation) maybe the result could have been different.”
