Ashes 2023: Ponting keen to offer batting advice to Labuschagne, Head

Former Australia captain Ricky Ponting is ready to offer some technical advice to his compatriots Marnus Labuschagne and Travis Head ahead of the second Ashes 2023 Test against England in Lords set to be played from June 28Australias twowicket win in the first match of the new ICC World Test Championship cycle against England featured a number of superb individual performances But Labuschagne and Head were not among those to shine with the worldrsquos third and fourthranked Test batters both struggling to find their best form at EdgbastonLabuschagnes Test career has been a sparkling success in the five years since his debut but only one of his 10 centuries has come outside Australia and his average on the road is more than 30 runs down on his home figuresPonting knows a thing or two about scoring runs with only Sachin Tendulkar scoring more in the history of the Test game And his record in England isnrsquot the worst either with Ponting scoring four away Ashes centuries and averaging 4179 across his Test career in English conditionsThe former Aussie skipper feels that Labuschagne needs to go back to basics to find success in the current Ashes series and that he is happy to speak oneonone if the 28yearold wants toIll wait for them to come and ask me Its not my place Im not one of the coaches Im just a past player thats sitting back and analysing what a lot of these guys are doing Ponting said on The ICC ReviewBut I would like to catch up with him and have a chat about his batting because I think what Ive seen over the last couple of weeks as far as Im concerned I think hes over complicating things a little bitI think he has to trust and believe in whats made him the No2ranked Test batsman in the world for the last couple of years and go back to trusting that Thats all Id say to him really I would actually tell him to go and watch some footage and watch some video of when hes actually played his best and remember those things and go and do that all over again he addedLabuschagnes teammate Head also struggled in the first Test with England peppering the Aussie No5 with shortpitched bowlingHead was well set before India moved to the same tactic in the ICC World Test Championship Final earlier this month going on to make the gamersquos highestscore of 163And Ponting says that Head needs to work out a plan to get through that initial phase of attack from Englands bowlersFirstly hes now going to be aware that its going to happen Hes going to expect that the former skipper saidSo therefore I think he has to work at it in his own mind Whats the best way for him to combat that type of bowling Is it going to be to take it on Is he going to have success if he tries to hook and pull balls that are into his body Does he find a way to be able to duck and weave and get out of the way a bit better and try and wear the bowlers down he addedHeading into the second Test at Lords Ponting believes that the main threat to Head will be if England shuffle their bowling attack to bring in the pace of Mark WoodI mean the thing with these sort of plans generally in Test cricket is theres only normally one bowler in a team that can do it And we saw that even the other day with Ollie Robinson hes not really going to worry about you doing it Stuart Broad was probably their quickest bowler last week Ponting saidBen Stokes has been the enforcer for England in the past doing that but his bodys not going to allow him to do that role for England either Coming into Lordrsquos it could be Mark Wood They might bring Wood into the team which offers something a bit different Hersquos obviously a lot quicker and bowls a really good short ballHe Head has to be aware of it and if there is only the one bowler in the team that he thinks can do it then find a way to get through that one spell If theyre running in and trying to bowl really fast they can only do it for three or four overs If you can get through that then youre going to be fine he concludedAlso Read Ricky Ponting believes Joe Root is fulfilling his full potentialThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever