{"id":153034,"date":"2025-09-22T11:54:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-22T11:54:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/153034\/"},"modified":"2025-09-22T11:54:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-22T11:54:10","slug":"ponting-urges-australia-to-play-key-batter-at-no-3-for-ashes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/153034\/","title":{"rendered":"Ponting urges Australia to play key batter at No.3 for Ashes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>While assessing Australia\u2019s options, Ponting also cast an eye on England\u2019s likely XI, pointing to their No.3 dilemma and highlighting Ben Stokes\u2019 fitness as a decisive factor.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe difference with the two teams is you can probably pick England\u2019s team right now and you probably can\u2019t pick ours.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere\u2019s only one chink in their armour, and that\u2019s Ollie Pope at No.3. They\u2019ve got young Jacob Bethell who has batted at three for them in the past, that\u2019s one change they could make.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBen Stokes is the pivotal one for me, if he\u2019s fit and bowling like I saw him bowling against India, then their whole side looks completely different. He\u2019s probably their best bowler to be honest, he\u2019s got his pace back, he\u2019s fitter than he\u2019s been.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe\u2019s given up the drink, and he\u2019s really focused on being a long-term all-rounder for England, for as long as he can. If Stokes is fit, if Wood and Archer are, in fact, fit, they will have a really strong attack that will definitely be causing the Aussies a few nervous moments.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In England\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.icc-cricket.com\/news\/takeaways-from-the-series-after-england-and-india-share-the-spoils\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">recently concluded Test series draw against India<\/a>, skipper Stokes stood out with the ball, often bowling long spells to provide crucial breakthroughs. He finished the series with 17 wickets across four games and will once again look to bring his best foot forward come November.<\/p>\n<p>The first Ashes Test is set to begin on November 21 in Perth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While assessing Australia\u2019s options, Ponting also cast an eye on England\u2019s likely XI, pointing to their No.3 dilemma&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":153035,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[1721,67813,67811,67817,67827,67823,67826,67824,16326,67825,67822,67828,67834,67833,67814,6518,67832,67816,67815,67810,67820,67821,67830,101,67829,67831,67819,67812,67818,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-153034","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-cricket","tag-cricket-breaking-news","tag-cricket-headlines-today","tag-cricket-live-score","tag-cricket-match-highlights-today","tag-cricket-match-live-streaming-score","tag-cricket-match-result-today","tag-cricket-match-today-live","tag-cricket-news","tag-cricket-results-today","tag-cricket-scorecard-live","tag-cricket-series-updates","tag-cricket-world-cup-live-score","tag-cricket-world-cup-news","tag-cricket-world-news","tag-icc","tag-icc-cricket-updates","tag-international-cricket-live-score","tag-international-cricket-news","tag-latest-cricket-news","tag-latest-cricket-scores","tag-live-cricket-match-update","tag-odi-cricket-live-score","tag-sports","tag-t20-cricket-live-score","tag-test-cricket-live-score","tag-today-cricket-live-score","tag-today-cricket-news-update","tag-todays-cricket-match-score","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153034","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=153034"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153034\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/153035"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=153034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=153034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=153034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}