Australia had England on the mat in Cardiff on all five days till Paul Collingwood stepped in with a gritty 74 and the last pair of James Anderson and Monty saw off a desperate effort by the Aussie bowlers to eventually work out a draw.
However, Australian skipper Ricky Ponting accused England of employing delay tactics to force a draw.
"I don't think that was required," Ponting said. "He had changed his gloves the over before and his glove is not going to be too sweaty in one over.”
England all-rounder Bilal Shafayat ran onto the field during the 69-ball last wicket stand between Anderson and Panesar to offer the former batting gloves while physio Steve McCaig had to retreat after angry Australian players asked him to go off on the second occasion.
Chappell does not agree with Ponting
Former Australian captain Chappell, however, disagreed with Ponting: “I don’t think any team should complain about the tactics. It is best left to the umpires to handle such situations and the umpires were not strong enough to deal with the situation in Cardiff.”
Meanwhile, Chappell, who is now one of the most respected cricket brains and commentators in the world, said it was high time Australia came out of missing Glen McGrath and Shane Warne, when asked if the team missed the two legends more so after the way the two tail-enders frustrated an intense bid by the men from Down Under.
“Warne and McGrath have retired and they are not going to come back. It is irrelevant now to think of what they could have done. The others have to be good enough to step up.
All teams lose good players at some point of time and they have to recover.”
Despite Australia missing out on a certain victory to the last two England batsmen after getting rid of their more established players, Chappell did not seem to agree with former Australian tearaway Jeff Thompson, who had said that Ponting was “crap as captain.”
“Well, it is not easy to get rid of Ponting. If you want to get rid of him, you have to look at who is better than him.
As far as the current Australian team is concerned, no one is better than Ponting and it is not easy to replace him.”
"I was wrong about England"
Chappell said he thought England had the better bowling attack going into the first Test but he had to change his views after he saw their bowlers bleed runs and allow the Aussies to amass 674 for six (declared), with four of their batsmen scoring hundreds.
Chappell was also critical of the way England swashbuckler Kevin Pieterson threw his wicket away in the first innings after looking all set to score a big one.
“The kind of shot Pietersen played in the first innings was ridiculous. He has got to work out for himself what kind of shot he wants to play.”
Pietersen played a horrible shot against Nathan Hauritz on 69 and has since drawn the ire from former players from Australia as well as England.
The two teams clash for the second Ashes Test on July 16 at Lord’s.
No comments:
Post a Comment