English skipper Joe Root has made giant strides in international cricket and has already become one of the finest modern day batsmen across all three formats of the game. If not the best, Root is definitely in the league of some other greats of the game like Virat Kohli, Steven Smith and Kane Williamson. With over 5,000 Test runs at the age of 26, Root has emerged as the perfect middle order batsman which the English fans have been longing for.
However former Australian World Cup-winning captain Ricky Ponting feels that Root won’t be the key batsmen for the visitors in the upcoming Ashes starting from 23rd November. Ponting who has been part of several memorable Ashes battles feels that former skipper Alistair Cook will be the main batsman for the Brits once the series gets underway.
Cook’s recent form hasn’t been great, but given his enormous baggage of experience, Ponting feels he will come in handy for the upcoming Ashes.
“(Alastair Cook’s) who I would target. I would take one of the most experienced players in world cricket down at the top and make life difficult as I could for him. Then maybe it could have a ripple effect down their batting line-up as well,” Ponting was quoted as saying by BT Sports.
Ponting feels that Root will get Cook “off the hook” especially after his performances have been mediocre in the recent past. Elaborating on what targeting a player means Ponting said:
“At the end of the day, what does (targeting a player) mean?. You try to make it as hard and as difficult as you can for every single one of those players. Whichever England batsmen that’s batting at the time, then Australia should be making it as hard as possible for that player.”
England has to do without the services of all-rounder Ben Stokes and Steven Finn which will put that much extra pressure on Stuart Broad and James Anderson. The former Aussie skipper feels that the batsmen must keep them under pressure to counter their threat.
“When Broad and Anderson have got the ball in their hand every Australian batsmen should be making it as hard as they possibly can for them as well. You can’t afford just to focus on one or two players if you’re going into an Ashes series. And as we’ve seen in the past, it’s a whole lot more than that,” Ponting concluded.