Former Australia captain Ricky Ponting was recently asked to pick his best no. 4 batter in Test cricket ahead of the Ashes series beginning Friday.At first, given the choice to pick between Kevin Pietersen and Mahela Jayawardene, Ponting picked Pietersen. Then Ponting chose Kevin Pietersen (KP) over Mark Waugh, and then Pakistan’s former cricketer Javed Miandad over KP. Thereafter, the former Australian men’s cricket team captain chose fellow countryman Steve Smith over Miandad. He then picked Steve Smith over West Indies legend Brian Lara, and former South African all-rounder Jacques Kallis.
Then put forward with a tough of choosing between Steve Smith and Virat Kohli, Ponting went with Smith. Then he also chose Smith over England batter Joe Root, saying, “Smith’s average is obviously better, Root has got 13,500 runs. I’m gonna go with Steve Smith still.”Lastly, he was asked to choose between Steve Smith and Sachin Tendulkar, and Ponting chose Smith as the best No.4 in Test cricket. Ricky Ponting has also delivered his predictions on the upcoming Ashes series. While Australia have held the Ashes since 2018 and has lost just four Test matches to England on home soil since the turn of the century, Ponting believes England will be competitive during the five-match Test series Down Under.“I don’t think there’ll be any draws, just the way that England play,” Ponting declared, as quoted from the official website of the ICC.“If there’s reasonable weather through the Australian summer, we know that the biggest concern for the last 15 years has been Sydney with the amount of days we’ve lost there,” he said.“Perth and Brisbane this time of year are normally great. So I don’t foresee any drawn games and I just think it’s going to be really, really close,” he added.“So I’m going 3-2 Australia,” he noted.
