Cricket legend Ricky Ponting blasts England for using a VERY dodgy tactic – but it couldn’t stop them losing to Australia
- Aussies won the deciding ODI match in five-game series
- Referees were not very impressed with England’s behaviour
Cricket icon Ricky Ponting has lashed out at England for using an underhanded tactic in a failed attempt to knock Australia out of the match in the teams’ decisive one-day match on Sunday.
The former Test skipper slammed the home side for wasting time as they fell to the old foe in Bristol.
With the match shortened due to a rain delay, the Aussies had to bat twenty overs to secure a result β and England did their best to postpone the match in the hope that more rain would wash the match away.
With just over two overs to go, England’s Matthew Potts called for new boots and the minutes ticked by when a replacement fielder got him some boots.
The match officials were unimpressed, and neither was the commentary team.
‘The referee is looking at him [Potts] with a certain degree of displeasure. This is nonsense,β said commentator Geoff Lemon on the BBC coverage.
“We’ve seen this movie before,” Ponting said.
βThis is getting funnier by the minute. We can see that there is nothing wrong with the boot.β
The umpires were less than impressed when England’s Matthew Potts (kneeling, right) made a dodgy call as the deciding ODI match hung in the balance in Bristol.
Australian cricket legend Ricky Ponting (pictured in England during the series) called out the home team for the obvious time-wasting tactics
However, the sneaky tactic did England no favors.
Series player Travis Head also scored valuable runs as Australia won their race against the miserable weather, coming out on top with 49 runs using the DLS method.
Head, who started the series with a glorious ton, ended it with some surprisingly masterful bowling, taking 4-28 from 6.2 overs, before his quick 31, linked with a record-breaking half-century from Matt Short, sealed the deal just before the flood came.
In pursuit of England’s formidable 309, the focus was on whether Australia could score enough in the first twenty overs to move ahead of the DLS.
That’s exactly what they did, racing through to 1-103 on the first 10-over powerplay before finishing on 2-165 – perfect timing, as it turned out, with heavy rain starting just four balls after the 20-over mark .
Travis Head (pictured left) made another valuable contribution to an Australian victory as he was awarded Player of the Series honours
Steve Smith was on 36 no alongside Josh Inglis (28 no), with Australia able to triumph after three weeks of testing blighted by injury and illness.
The latest was Marsh’s sore back, but former Test skipper Smith proved the safest pair of hands as a replacement from the moment he won a big toss to put England in ideal seaming conditions.
Yet he had to overcome a headache as England responded with a brutal early attack, with star spinner Adam Zampa smashed for six sixes by England captain Harry Brook, while Ben Duckett raced to a brilliant hundred.
But by mixing and matching eight different bowlers, Smith’s part-time spinners worked wonders as England fell from 2-202 just before halfway, with an apparent possibility of 400, to 309 after 49.2 overs.