Ponting's 'mental' blueprint for Root as pressure mounts

Ricky Ponting has suggested Joe Root look to Steve Smith and Marnus Labuschagne to help sharpen his focus at the crease, warning the England captain that pressure will only mount on him in the coming days and weeks.

While there was another milestone for Root on day three of the second Ashes Test during his golden run with the bat as moved past 1,600 runs for the calendar year (the fourth most of all time and climbing) Root was furious with himself as he threw away a match-defining innings for the second time in as many games.

The much-publicised conversion issue the right-hander has struggled with had looked to be in the rear-view mirror. Coming into this series, he had reached triple-figures in 10 of the past 19 times he had passed fifty, and scored 180 or more in half of those innings.

As Ponting told cricket.com.au on Saturday after England fell in a heap following Root's dismissal and conceded a 237-run first-innings lead, "his conversion rate over the last few years has been outstandingly good."

Yet in Australia his troubles linger.

From 20 Test innings in Australia, Root has passed fifty eight times but never reached triple figures.

Labuschagne and Smith are in second and third spot on the ICC's Test batting rankings behind Root, but Ponting suggested the world's leading Test batter could learn a thing or two from the Australian duo.

"It's got to be a mental thing," said Ponting. "There's no technical error in his last two dismissals that has led to him getting out. It's got to be him being not quite switched on enough for the ball he's got out to.

"Marnus and Smith are really good examples of how they can find a way to be so switched on for so long.

"It is a concentration thing with Joe and captaincy probably doesn't help either, (spending) long periods of time in the field when your team is not going so well. They haven't gone so well of late with their Test results.

"All of those things take a toll on you. He spent one and three quarters of a day in the field before he went into bat.

"I know that's Test cricket and everyone's been there before but you're probably more likely to make a mistake having fielded for two days than going out fresh."

Root previously spoke to Ponting during the 2018-19 summer when he was playing in the KFC BBL for the Sydney Thunder about the conversion issues that have become a thing of the past during his remarkable recent run of form.

Whether or not Ponting's advice to focus on becoming the best long-form batter he could, even if that meant prioritising Tests over white-ball cricket was taken, Root has become firmly entrenched among the top echelon of batters in the world.

But the gulf in ability between him and his teammates has been exposed by how England have folded in alarming fashion after his exit in his two most recent innings.

At the Gabba in the visitors' second dig he was the second domino in a collapse of 8-74, while his dismissal in Adelaide on Saturday started a collapse of 8-86.

On both occasions it was towering allrounder Cameron Green who got the prized scalp by inducing an outside edge, both times with deliveries Ponting said Root did not need to play at.

Finding a method that sees him more consistently post big totals in this ongoing series will be a challenge, believes Ponting, who tipped that Root (and the England hierarchy) will be taking heat for selection missteps ahead of the Boxing Day Test next week.

"It will get tougher because the noise will get louder around their team," Ponting said of Root's challenge.

"The selection noise will get louder. The fact they haven't played a specialist spinner, knowing what Nathan Lyon has done in the past, that's got to be a huge blue.

"They'll be doubting pretty much everything they do. If they lose here there will be more pressure on selections (with England thinking) 'Did we get it right? Did we get it wrong? Who do we play in Melbourne?'

"A lot of the thinking I've heard from England is 'what we're doing next week'. Last week in Brisbane was about having Broad and Anderson right for here, then everything I've heard about this week is about making sure (Mark) Wood's right for later in the series.

"Well if they lose here there's not going to be any 'later in the series'. It sounds like there's confusion coming out of their camp."

The switch that unlocked Lyon: HCL Vantage Point

"Once he swapped ends Nathan Lyon looked a totally different bowler, which allowed him to build pressure from there, which started the whole six or seven maidens straight after the break and changed the whole momentum of the game.

"There wasn't that much happening from the end he started from, but when he changed there was significantly more turn and bounce.

"Nathan was in the middle of an awesome spell and didn’t bowl any bad balls to Ben Stokes at all, but the way things were going, Stokes dug a bit of a hole and couldn't get himself out of it. When wickets were falling around him, he'll look back and wish he had of been a bit more positive early on.

"That's what pressure does. Nathan's got him six times in Test cricket and it looked like he had a curse on him today, Stokes wasn't willing to take him on at all."