“What are you doing on the field?”: Ricky Ponting blasts Joe Root’s captaincy after the Ashes 2021-22 Adelaide test

Joe Root’s captaincy has been under the radar in the Ashes, and former Aussie captain Ricky Ponting has now criticized Joe Root.

England are 2-0 down in the Ashes 2021-22, and one more defeat will take the Ashes away from them. The side has lost both of the games in a one-sided manner, and the team is heavily criticized. In England’s batting, only Dawid Malan and Joe Root have batted well. Malan has scored 188 runs in the series, whereas Root has scored 175 runs.

Root has been brilliant this season, he has scored 1630 runs at 64.69, courtesy of six centuries. However, the captaincy of Joe Root is under the radar. The bowlers of England were bowling way short on the Adelaide track, and even Joe Root blasted them.

“I don’t think we bowled the right lengths,” Root said after the Adelaide Test.

“If we’re being brutally honest, we needed to bowl fuller.”

“As soon as we did in that second innings, we created chances. We need to do that more, we need to be a bit braver, get the ball up there a bit further because when we do, we’re going to create chances and make life difficult.”

Ashes 2021-22: Ricky Ponting blasts Joe Root’s captaincy

Former Aussie Captain Ricky Ponting has blasted Joe Root over his post-match comments. He said that it was Root’s job to suggest the bowlers to bowl the fuller-length deliveries.

“I nearly fell off my seat when I heard that,” Ponting said of Root’s post-match comments.

“If you can’t influence your bowlers on what length to bowl, what are you doing on the field?”

“Joe Root can come back and say whatever he likes but if you’re captain, you’ve got to be able to sense when your bowlers aren’t bowling where you want them to.

“And if they’re not going to listen, you take them off, simple as that.”

Joe Root and the five stages of grief

Denial
Anger
Bargaining
Depression pic.twitter.com/KbJ1VQMtWL

— Sritama Panda (Ross Taylor’s Version) (@cricketpun_duh) December 16, 2021

Ricky Ponting even highlighted that the English team bowled well when Joe Root was not on the field. Ben Stokes lead the side for a period, when Joe Root was off due to a groin injury.

“The interesting thing for me is the only time they bowled full in the game was when Joe Root wasn’t on the ground,” he said.

“The start of day four when they had a meeting on the ground before play started, Ben Stokes took over the captaincy, and that was the only time in the game they pitched the ball up.”

The next test will be a boxing-day test, and it will be played at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in Melbourne.