Those Mistakes Could Have Cost Him The Test: Ricky Ponting Singles Out England Star As Key Reason Behind Loss In 1st Test

Ricky Ponting has singled out one England star after the team’s loss against Australia in the first Ashes Test at Edgbaston. England suffered a heartbreaking 2-wicket loss to concede the lead in the five-match series.

While Ben Stokes & Co. remained in the driver’s seat for most part of the game, they just could not deliver the killer punch. Defending 280, England had Australia reeling at 227 for 8. With no recognised batsmen left, England were looking favorites to win the first Ashes Test.

However, Stokes and his teammates just could not break the partnership between Nathan Lyon and Pat Cummins. The duo shared an unbeaten stand of 55 runs to fire Australia to one of the best Test wins of all time. Cummins remained unbeaten on 44 while Lyon scored 16 runs.

Ricky Ponting analyzes England’s defeat:

Analyzing England’s defeat in the first Ashes Test, Ricky Ponting singled out Jonny Bairstow’s poor wicketkeeping as one of the key reasons behind the loss. While Bairstow scored 78 runs in the first innings, his wicketkeeping was not really up to the mark.

The wicketkeeper-batsman missed a stumping and dropped a catch in Australia’s first innings. He went on to drop another catch in the opening over of day three, and did not even attempt to take one when James Anderson found the edge of Usman Khawaja’s bat in the first over of the second innings. Khawaja went on to play a crucial knock of 65 runs.

And Ponting believes that Bairstow’s mistakes behind the stumps might have costed England the first Ashes Test.

“Jonny Bairstow actually had a very ordinary game behind the stumps, there’s about four chances that he put down. And on flat wickets, if they want flat wickets, you cannot afford your keeper to be making mistakes,” Ricky Ponting told The ICC Review podcast.

“If you look at those mistakes by themselves, some people might say those mistakes could have cost him the Test match. Those are things they have to answer. Whereas Australia, because they’ve won the game, they’ll have to answer a lot fewer questions,” he added.

Also Read: He Even Brought My Name Into It: Ricky Ponting Hits Back At Ollie Robinson