Ricky Ponting, a former captain of Australia, has criticized Rohit Sharma and Team India for leaving Ravichandran Ashwin out of the starting lineup for the World Test Championship (WTC) final at The Oval.
Due to the green tint of the surface and the cloudy weather, Team India decided to play four seamers instead of Ashwin, including Shardul Thakur and Umesh Yadav. As the only frontline spinner, Ravindra Jadeja claimed the position.
Ponting said
Given that Ashwin would have been a challenge for Australia in the second innings, Ponting believed that India made a poor decision.
“India have fallen into the trap of picking an attack for the first inning of this Test match only. The reason why I was surprised that Ashwin was left out is because of the number of left-handers Australia have. There’s no doubt in my mind that Ashwin would have bowled a lot better than Jadeja later on in the Test,” Ponting said on air during commentary.
“The big decision that they had to make was between Thakur and Umesh. I was leaning towards Thakur because he would be my workhorse to give a bit of a break to the strike bowlers Shami and Siraj. You can go to Jadeja for a couple of overs just to tie the game down a bit,” he added.
During the opening hour of play in the cloudy circumstances, Team India’s seamers were largely on point. In the fourth over of the innings, Usman Khawaja was out for a duck by Siraj, who made the first breakthrough.
Indian bowlers have attempted to pitch it fuller on occasion, but they have not been rewarded because of their inconsistent performance. Right after the session break, Shami used a full delivery to go through Labuschagne’s defence.
“If India had bowled really well then 60 percent would have been on the fuller side and 20 percent on a good length. I made a point earlier, the bowlers will have to accept that they are gonna get driven every now and then. What the captain can do is maybe have his mid-off and mid-on straighter and deeper which just gives the bowlers encouragement to pitch it up.”
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