ICC World Cup 2019 | England’s style of play not fit for big pressure tournaments, believes Ricky Ponting
Ricky Ponting has stated that England’s aggressive approach to the fifty over format has worked wonders in bilateral series’ but was always bound to be susceptible in high pressure tournaments such as World Cup. He believes that the team certainly needs to improve to have any chance of qualifying.
The brute force of England’s batting lineup was the hot topic of discussion prior to the World Cup, with people projecting them to become the first team to cross the 500 run barrier in the tournament. However, things have not panned out that way so far. Not only are they yet to reach even the 400 run mark in the tournament, but Eoin Morgan's side has failed to chase down modest targets such as 233 and 286.
Australia’s assistant coach for the quadrennial tournament, legendary batsman Ricky Ponting feels that such an approach to the tournament might have been flawed in the first place.“In the last few weeks, they haven’t played the way they would have wanted to. They haven’t made these 400-plus scores they have been talking about all the time. The scores have generally been a little bit lower in this World Cup, Justin and I spoke about it earlier,” Ponting said in an interview, as reported by the ICC.
England have achieved huge success in the format ever since their embarrassing World Cup campaign four years ago. It was just an year ago that they won two five match ODI series against Australia, with the aggregate score reading 9-1. Yet, the Kangaroos managed to topple England on the grandest stage of them all, with relative ease. “The tournament plays a lot differently from a regulation five-ODI series, where England have come out and hit some huge scores in the last two to three years. Was that game style going to stand up under pressure? We will have to wait and see in the next few games,” quoted Ponting.
While Australia’s win over their arch rivals made them the first team to go through the group stages, questions loom large regarding the qualification of the hosts. They are yet to play two games, both against teams in the top four. They will need to win at least one and possibly both the matches to secure a semi final berth. “They need to improve. They have a couple of big games to come, against India and New Zealand, they might have to play better than today to win those games,” added Ponting.
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