Birmingham: The Englishmen are in complete control going into the third day of the first Ashes Test between England and Australia at the Edgbaston Cricket Ground and former Australia skipper, Ricky Ponting believes that it has more to do with the Australian batting in the first innings when only Steve Smith managed to stand tall and scored a brilliant 144.
"We'll wait and see at the end of the Test match," Ponting told cricket.com.au. "If they lose because they haven't had much penetration with the ball, I think they'll think about it. "But at the end of the day, it's the batting in the first innings that has let the team down so far. You take Steve Smith out of that first innings and it was pretty bad. I don't think they'll be talking too much about the bowling yet."
Ponting said that while he was surprised with the bowling line-up, he also defended the decision to play Peter Siddle. "When Tests come to the fourth and fifth day when there's going to be very little in the wicket for him, I think that's when he'll find it hard. He hasn't got the penetration that Hazlewood and Starc have got so he has to do other things exceptionally well to get wickets, like bowl a lot of maiden overs and build pressure. It'll be hard to get a breakthrough as this wicket flattens out," he said.
- Indi-Asian News Service
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