Former Australia captain Ricky Ponting has hit back at Ollie Robinson for antics and comments during the recently-concluded first Ashes Test at Edgbaston.
Robinson hogged the limelight for all the wrong reasons during the first Test. He faced severe criticism from the Australian cricket fraternity for giving an abusive send-off to Usman Khawaja after ending his sublime 141-run knock. A pumped up Robinson was caught telling Khawaja: “F*** off, you f***ing p***k.”
Following the incident, the England pacer had singled out Ricky Ponting for his own sledging during Ashes series when defending the send-off. And the former Australia captain has given a fitting reply to the right-arm pacer in response to his comments and actions.
Ricky Ponting’s response to Ollie Robinson:
The Australia great it was “water off a duck’s back” for himself before saying that Robinson’s words came back to haunt Robinson.
“As I said after Ollie Robinson said what he said, this England cricket team hasn’t played against Australia and they’ll find out pretty quickly what playing Ashes cricket and playing against a good Australian cricket team is all about,” Ricky Ponting told The ICC Review podcast.
“And if Ollie Robinson hasn’t learned that already after last week, then he’s a slow learner,” he added.
“Some of the things he had to say – I mean he even brought my name into it, which I felt was a little bit unusual, but for me it’s water off a duck‘s back. If he is sitting back thinking about me, then no wonder he bowled like the way that he did in that game if he’s worried about what I did 15 years ago.
“He’ll learn pretty quickly that if you’re going to talk to Australian cricketers in an Ashes series, then you want to be able to back it up with your skills,” added the Australia great.
Talking about the first Ashes Test, Australia beat England by 2 wickets in a nailbiter. Chasing 281, Australia were 8 down for 227 before an unbeaten stand of 55 runs between Pat Cummins and Nathan Lyon took them over the crossing line in a thrilling manner.
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