Ponting says England are on their way to a hiding in the Ashes

By Chris Stocks

Former Australia captain Ricky Ponting has written off England’s Ashes chances, saying Joe Root’s team will be easy meat for Australia when the series starts next week.

Ponting, the first Australia captain since the 19th century to lose three Ashes series, has pinpointed weaknesses in England’s batting line-up, says the absence of star all-rounder Ben Stokes will prove decisive and believes leading bowlers James Anderson and Stuart Broad – who share 894 Test wickets between them – are over the hill.

In all, Ponting, who retired from Test cricket five years ago, has predicted a 4-0 win for his country, saying England’s only chance of winning a match will be in the day-night Test in Adelaide next month.

“I’ve been a bit more outward than normal about this one because I honestly think Australia will win really easily,” he said.

“England are searching for an opener, they’re searching for a No3, Stokes might not be there and a couple of their quicks have gone down.

“Anderson and Broad, as good as they’ve been over the years, I think they’re on the steady decline. They’re not going to get better from here as cricketers, though they’re hanging on to a reasonably high level of performance.

“Then you match it up against our team and we’ve got Mitchell Starc, Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood who are skyrocketing – those guys are on the up. If they get a sniff early then they’ll run with it and they’ll be near unstoppable.

“I just think right now England have got more gaps and more cause for concern in not only their eleven but their entire squad than Australia have.”

Hitting back at Ian Botham and Graeme Swann, who have described the current Australia batting line-up as weak in recent days, Ponting said: “Let’s wait and see, everyone’s got their own opinion on the way they think this series will go and how the individual players will go, but I’m pretty confident that we’ve got a group of guys there who are going to make it really hard for England to win a game.

“I think they (Botham and Swann) should be looking in their own backyards before they start worrying about ours.”

Referencing the inclusion of batsmen James Vince, Dawid Malan, Mark Stoneman and Gary Ballance in England’s Ashes squad, as well as dropped batsmen in Keaton Jennings and Tom Westley, Ponting added: “I don’t remember seeing too many England teams, certainly in the last 15 years anyway, with some of the batsmen that I’ve seen them play over the last six to eight months.

“Some of the guys I’ve seen I’m not too enamoured with. I think it will be 4-0 Australia and I think the best chance that England have got will be in Adelaide where the night conditions will suit Anderson and Broad down to the ground. But if they don’t win that one, I can’t see them winning one.”