Ashes 2023: England will get better, tweak things along the way, says Ponting

Ricky Ponting believes that England will get better as a Test team after coming back from 2-0 down to make the series scoreline 2-2

London: Former Australia captain Ricky Ponting believes that England will get better as a Test team after coming back from 2-0 down to make the series scoreline 2-2 in the recently-concluded Ashes series, while adding that they have started to tweak things along the way.

On Monday at The Oval, Chris Woakes and Moeen Ali delivered game-changing spells while Stuart Broad had a fairytale finish to his career by taking the last two wickets to help England beat Australia by 49 runs and make the final series scoreline 2-2. “If you look at the players they have, I don’t think (Brendon) McCullum (head coach) is asking them do anything other than be themselves. He is saying, ‘go out and trust your way’. This is just the tip of the iceberg, I believe.”

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“It is a relatively young team, some of the guys haven’t played a lot of Test cricket – Harry Brook, Ben Duckett and Zak Crawley can all still improve. England will get better, tweak things along the way. I am looking forward to seeing them in the future,” said Ponting on Sky Sports at the end of the series.

Though England were on the backfoot after losing first two series, Ponting highlighted that England didn’t deter away from their ultra-attacking approach, and learnt some lessons in match awareness too.

“England had opportunities in those first two Test matches and knew their style was standing up to what Australia had. You could hear the self-belief coming through Stokes, coming through McCullum, coming through all the players, whenever we spoke to them.”

“They were unwavering in what they wanted to do and how they wanted to play. I think they have learnt along the way. It was just a little tweak in game awareness, that’s all it was,” he added.

Former England captain Nasser Hussain feels England have been making certain tweaks to their game in Test cricket and feels the hosts have balanced their way of winning as well as capturing the attention of the fans in the country. “Internally, England have made subtle tweaks. You only have to look at how Stokes has batted, how Brook has batted, the technical changes Crawley has made to make himself more consistent. They are not a side who say, ‘that is the way we play’.”

“Throughout this Ashes there has been a quandary within me. I see the bigger picture that it’s about entertainment but I have also seen the historical picture of ‘we used to get battered by this lot’.”

“Australia used to hammer us and when you have an Australian down, keep them down. Yes, entertain – but win as well. England have switched it, just tightened it up and got the right side of the line, managing to win and entertain,” he concluded.

England’s next Test assignment is a five-match series trip to India from January 25 to March 11 next year, with Hyderabad, Visakhapatnam, Rajkot, Ranchi and Dharamshala being the venues.