New Delhi, July 17 (IANS) Former Australia captain Ricky Ponting has named the top three batters he expects to play in the first Ashes Test and Australia’s first home series of the new World Test Championship cycle. He also offered advice to struggling opener Sam Konstas, whose form has sparked much debate.

Despite winning the Test series 3-0 in the Caribbean, Australia’s batters did little to quiet earlier criticism about their weaknesses as they only scored over 300 once in the series, with most of the runs coming from the lower order.

Instead, they relied heavily on their strong bowling attack as Mitchell Starc, Scott Boland, and Josh Hazlewood dominated, bowling out the West Indies for just 27 runs in the final innings.

“The (batters) that they’re talking about the last couple of weeks in particular, have been (Sam) Konstas and (Usman) Khawaja, and then there was some talk about Cameron Green, if he was a long term No. 3 three or not,” Ponting said in the latest edition of The ICC Review.

“(Green’s) second innings in the West Indies (in the last Test) might have just put some of that to bed. As tough as those conditions were to bat for as long as he did in trying conditions, he might have silenced a few of those critics.

“I think with where they’re at, I think the Ashes line-up is going to be like it is right now. I think that’s what they’re going to be starting with, and you keep your fingers crossed and hope that those guys can get the job done at the start,” he said.

Much of the spotlight has been on opener Konstas, who, apart from an impressive half-century on debut against Jasprit Bumrah and India’s attack in last year’s Boxing Day Test, has found runs hard to come by. He averages just 16.30 from his first 10 Test innings. However, Ponting believes Konstas has faced a tougher introduction to Test cricket than most.

“I read some really interesting quotes or a story written by (Australian journalist) Robert Craddock about Sam Konstas, how the Australians sort of tried to protect him from what they thought was going to be a really difficult tour of Sri Lanka. They left him out there hoping to bring him in in the Caribbean where things might have been a little bit easier. Well, it’s been the opposite. It’s been the exact opposite of that.

“As it turned out, the attack and the wickets in Sri Lanka were good batting wickets and a really poor attack. And the wickets that we’ve got in the Caribbean have been hard for everybody to bat on. I look at that last result where the West Indies have been bowled out for 27. That’s just not down to high quality bowling. That’s down to the surface and the ball and all sorts of things,” said Ponting.

–IANS

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