Openers key for England
Ponting believes the opening partnership of Zak Crawley and Ben Duckett will be crucial for England as he thinks Australia’s bowlers can dominate the tourists’ middle-order should early inroads be made.
Ponting thinks England’s openers must attack Australia’s quicks to try and obtain the upper hand early in their innings.
“I have had a bit of a look back through the last couple of years when England have played really good Test cricket and it’s been on the back of some really good, fast, positive starts from their openers,” Ponting noted.
“Because of the way that they play, they come out, they play their shots, they put pressure back on the opposition straight away and sometimes before you know, you look up at the scoreboard and they are none for 70 or 80 and you’re sort of eight or 10 overs into the Test match.
“That’s the way they’ll need to do it again, I think in Australia. It won’t be easy because the wickets in Perth and Brisbane if they happen to bat first anyway, which is not England’s preferred style of playing.
“England always like to bat second if they can, but I just think if they don’t get off to flying starts and Duckett and Crawley can’t be consistent at the top of the order, it just puts so much more pressure on those middle-order players on (Joe) Root, on (Harry) Brook, on Ollie Pope, who we know hasn’t got a great record in Australia either.
“And all of a sudden you might look up and Ben Stokes is in a whole lot earlier than what England would want him to be. So I think they (England openers) are crucial.
“Everyone will talk about Root and Brook and Stokes and the impact that they could have on this series. But if the openers don’t get England off to a really good, solid, fast start, then the Australian bowlers could dominate and get into that middle-order nice and early with the newer Kookaburra ball and it could be exactly what Australia are after.”
