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Former Australia captain Ricky Ponting has urged England batter Harry Brook to adapt the way he plays in Australia.
Brook's start to the ongoing Ashes series has mirrored much of England's performances, with glimpses of quality cricket overshadowed by periods of frustration that have allowed Australia to regain the urn via an unassailable 3-0 series lead. While Brook has scored more runs (173) than all of his teammates apart from No.1 ranked batter Joe Root, the stylish right-hander has managed just one half-century from six innings, and many of his dismissals have come at crucial times for England. Ponting is a long-time admirer of Brook and believes England's No.5 must adjust the way he plays Down Under or risk the prospect of more frustrating performances. "Look, I love Harry Brook. He's one of the best players in the world to watch, but I think with some of his dismissals, he's almost selling himself a bit short on how good he is," Ponting said on The ICC Review, as quoted from the official website of ICC. "He doesn't need to do some of the stuff that he's doing. And I guess, I'm sure it's going to be frustrating for an English fan as well, or even some of his teammates. You know, he's had a chance to sit back and watch Joe Root go about his cricket for the last 15 years. And to be fair, and this is no knock on Joe Root," he added. "Harry Brook's got every bit as much talent as Joe Root has. You see him trying to play little lap shots off Scott Boland against a yorker that could have easily knocked his middle and leg stump out of the ground when his team needs him to make a hundred and chase down 435," he noted. Ponting thinks Brook's teammates and England's coaching staff will be equally as frustrated with his dismissals across the Ashes series thus far. "I'll be critical of that, but I don't think I'll be any more critical than what his teammates would be or what his coach would be, because they should be critical of those sort of mistakes, because it's those sort of things that have cost them this Ashes series," Ponting said. "They probably won't admit it. They won't talk about it. They won't bring it up. They're very defiant with that sort of criticism," he added. "They'll always come back and say, 'Oh, that's the way that we play, and we encourage them to play their natural games'. But you can't do that in Australia, and you can't do it against Australia because if you give them an opportunity, you give them an inch, they'll take a mile," he noted. "And we've seen that right the way through the series," he said. (ANI)
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