Legendary former Australia skipper Ricky Ponting has come out criticizing Australia’s poor batting in the second Test at MCG. According to him, there were no demons in the MCG pitch. It was just a poor batting display by Australian batsmen in both innings.
At the moment, Australia are on the cusp of a loss against India as they ended Day 3 on a score of 133/6, with just a two-run lead over India.
“You can’t blame the pitch. The pitch has been absolutely perfect today. It’s a little bit of spin, yes, but you’d expect that. Day three of a Test Match. Very little on offer for the fast bowlers, but it’s just been poor batting. Very, very poor batting so far,” Ponting was quoted as saying by Seven.
Ponting didn’t mince any words in criticizing the Australian batsmen and he said that they were not proactive enough against the Indian bowlers.
“It’s been one of the reasons, I think, that they’ve eventually got themselves out, playing rash shots. They haven’t been able to tick the scoreboard over on a regular enough basis. Pressure builds. When pressure builds, bad shots come,” Ponting said.
“I talked about it in the first innings as well particularly with the way they played Ravi Ashwin. They weren’t proactive against him. Yes, it’s been good bowling, but sometimes against the best bowlers you have to take more risks as a batsman. For the sheer fact they’re not going to bowl bad balls.”
Ponting, however, was full of praise for the Indian bowlers. They executed their plans perfectly and reaped the rewards as well.
“The lesser skilled bowlers you can sit on all day because you know you’re going to one or two scoring opportunities an over, but Bumrah, Ashwin, Jadeja, even Siraj to a certain degree in this game, they don’t make many mistakes.
“They’ve actually forced the Australian batsman into making mistakes. When you’re just sitting there waiting for good bowlers to make mistakes, you’re basically a sitting duck,” Ponting said.
Australia will begin Day 4 with Cameron Green (17) and Pat Cummins (15) at the crease. While they face an uphill task of saving the Test match, India will believe that they are just four wickets and a few runs away from a series-levelling victory.
