Ashes Scout: Ponting in Warner's corner, Aussies get over-rate reprieve, series on track to be tightest of all time

Ricky Ponting has urged Australia’s selectors to stick with David Warner for the fourth Ashes Test at Old Trafford, insisting a big score is imminent for the opener.

Australia are due to regroup in Manchester with a full-squad training session on Sunday. 

A win in the next Test will be enough to secure their first Ashes series win in England since 2001

The biggest conundrum for the tourists remains whether to bring a fit-again Cameron Green back into the team – potentially at the expense of Warner.

Green has been an automatic pick for Australia whenever fit since his debut against India in 2020-21 but Mitch Marsh’s century filling in for him in the third Test at Headingley has put that first-choice status in doubt.

One option would be to move Green to the top of the order and drop Warner, who has made one half-century on this tour, with 66 in the second Test at Lord’s.

Most concerning for Australia is that the opener was dismissed twice by his nemesis Stuart Broad at Headingley for four and one, taking his tally of outs off the seamer to 17.

(Photo by Stu Forster/Getty Images)

If Warner was dropped, it could spell the end of his international career given the 36-year-old’s stated intention to retire this summer against Pakistan at the SCG.

But Ponting said he would stick with the under-fire opener, leaving Green as the odd man out when the fourth Test gets under way on Wednesday.

“I’m probably more inclined to give David another opportunity and hope he can get through Stuart Broad and go on and make a big score,” Ponting said in an International Cricket Council podcast.

“When someone’s got you out 17 times, it does become as much a mental – or probably more of a mental – battle than it does a technical battle. 

“But just thinking about the series, I’d be inclined to stick with David Warner.”

Ponting noted Australia’s lack of warm-up games had made Warner harder to drop, given back-ups Marcus Harris and Matt Renshaw have not had a chance to press their claims.

But the former Test captain – who coached Warner in the Indian Premier League at Delhi Capitals this year – would like to see changes in the opener’s demeanour.

He felt Warner looked nervous when facing Broad, as shown by his wry smile when he twice edged the England quick to the slips at Headingley.

“I’d like to see him go the other way. I’d like to see him show that real bulldog fighting spirit that he’s got,” Ponting said. 

“Like he showed in the first innings of the World Test Championship, like he showed in the first innings at Lord’s where he made runs.

“If he gets back to that, with the way that I’ve seen him start in a couple of his innings, I honestly do feel a big score is just around the corner for him.”

Aussies get over-rates reprieve under new rule

Australia are set to earn some reprieve on over-rate penalties after the ICC reduced the sanctions handed down for on-field tardiness in Test cricket.

This year’s Ashes has been one of the most thrilling contests in years, but has also been tied down by poor over-rates with several overs lost on the majority of days of play.

Both Australia and England have fallen behind in each of the first three Tests of this series, with each facing heavy fines and points penalties in the World Test Championship.

In the first two Tests alone, Australia had been staring at the possibility of a 13-point penalty on the WTC ladder, significant given teams are only awarded 12 points for a win.

However, Australia will be allowed to keep some of those points under new rules passed at the ICC annual conference held in Durban this week.

Teams will still be penalised one point for every over they are behind in a Test, however if they bowl the opposition side out inside 80 overs no penalties will apply from that innings.

Australia’s Mitchell Starc appeals successfully for the wicket of England’s Ben Stokes. (Photo by Mike Egerton/PA Images via Getty Images)

Australia missed the maiden WTC final in 2021 as a result of a four-point over-rates penalty from the previous year’s Boxing Day Test.

While under the new rules Australia would still have been penalised for the 2020 Boxing Day Test – as India batted 115 overs in their first innings – the softening of the regulation lessens the chances of suffering such severe consequences.

England were bowled out inside 80 overs in their second innings at Edgbaston and first innings at both Lord’s and Headingley, meaning Australia’s points penalty will be somewhat reduced.

Players will also only be fined five per cent of their match fee for every over behind rather than 10 per cent previously, with fines capped at 50 per cent.

“The ICC World Test Championship has injected renewed energy into Test cricket giving it compelling context,” ICC Men’s Cricket Committee Sourav Ganguly said.

“In the last edition we only had 12 draws in 69 matches, and we want to ensure that trend continues whilst we’re giving fans the best value for money and keeping over-rates up.

“The Men’s Cricket Committee felt strongly that over-rate penalties in the form of WTC points deductions should remain but recommended that players should not have 100 per cent of their match fee at risk. 

“We believe this provides a balance between maintaining over-rates and ensuring we are not deterring players from playing Test cricket.”

The ICC also announced women will also collect the same prize money from World Cups as their male counterparts, after previously being awarded significantly less.

The issue was first highlighted in 2020, when Cricket Australia topped up the prize money to its players when they won the home T20 World Cup.

As recently as this year, Australia’s women were awarded $1.45m for winning the T20 World Cup, while England’s men were given $2.3m for their victory last year.

From next year’s women’s T20 World Cup in Bangladesh, that pay gap will no longer exist.

“This is a significant moment in the history of our sport and I am delighted that men’s and women’s cricketers competing at ICC global events will now be rewarded equally,” ICC Chairman Greg Barclay said.

Ashes could be tightest series of all time

This year’s Ashes is on track to be the tightest Test series of all time, with data showing the first three matches have made for the closest start to one in cricket history.

Australia and England’s players will re-emerge at Old Trafford next Wednesday, with both teams enjoying a breather this week after a chaotic month of cricket.

Such is the tight nature of the two teams, England have averaged 32.89 runs per wicket with the bat, as opposed to Australia’s 31.89.

But the level pegging goes well beyond that.

Prior to this tour, only twice in history had a series had three Tests decided by 50 runs or less or three wickets or less.

Those were the 1907-08 Ashes and India’s tour of Australia in 1977-78, with the close matches spread out.

This Ashes battle has already achieved that, with Australia’s two-wicket win at Edgbaston, 43-run win at Lord’s and England’s three-wicket victory at Headingley.

Those figures also don’t take into account the contrasting styles of the two teams, or the drama associated with the final day at Lord’s.

“They’ve been great viewing. It’s tense out there,” Australia’s captain Pat Cummins said.

Pat Cummins celebrates taking the wicket of Joe Root. (Photo by Adam Davy/PA Images via Getty Images)

Cummins has been at the centre of all three finishes, batting at Edgbaston and bowling at Lord’s and Headingley. 

“I actually really enjoy being out there and feeling like you’ve got some kind of control over the situation and you’re in the middle of it,” he said. 

“It’s actually 100-times worse when you’re in the change room, you wish you could do something about it, but you can’t.”

The 2005 Ashes is largely viewed as the greatest series of this century, but it began with a lopsided 239-run victory for Australia at Lord’s in the first Test.

The same could be said for the 2001 Border-Gavaskar Trophy, where Australia marginally missed out on a drought-breaking series win in India after a big victory in the first Test.

India’s series win in Australia in 2020-21 also had a one-sided Boxing Day Test after the tourists were all out for 36 in Adelaide, while the 1981 Ashes were brilliant but still had a slow-moving second Test at Lord’s.

So far in this series, there has barely been a lopsided day’s play or slow session from the moment Zak Crawley crunched Cummins through the covers to start the first Test.

Record numbers have tuned in in England on Sky Sports, while every day has been sold out at the Test venues.

An England win at Old Trafford next week would make for the first Ashes in 86 years to go to a decider at 2-2, with everything to play for at The Oval.

And as far as Michael Vaughan is concerned that would immediately put this series above the 2005 one he captained England in.

“If we can get to the Oval at 2-2, with one to play it will be the greatest Test series in my lifetime,” Vaughan wrote in the UK’s Telegraph this week.