‘Why are you captain?’: Ponting can't believe captain’s staggering Ashes admission

Ricky Ponting has shredded Joe Root after the England captain played the blame game and pointed the finger after another huge loss.

Joe Root’s excuses don’t wash with Ricky Ponting.

Ricky Ponting has slammed Joe Root after the England captain’s ”staggering” admission following his side’s 275-run loss to Australia in Adelaide.

After starting the series with a comprehensive thrashing in Brisbane, the Aussies have gone up 2-0 courtesy of a clinical display in the day-night Test.

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The long list of England’s woes keeps growing. From a fragile top six to dropping catches and taking wickets off no-balls, nothing has gone right on this tour.

After resting veteran quicks Stuart Broad and Jimmy Anderson for the first Test, the pair were recalled in Adelaide because of the assumption their expertise in controlling the seaming and swinging ball would be most useful with a pink Kookaburra under lights.

But they were largely ineffective in the first innings as there was hardly any movement to be found and England was left to rue the decision not to pick a specialist spinner, dropping Jack Leach after he was hammered at the Gabba.

Cricket pundits questioned why England persisted with bowling so short in the first innings at the Adelaide Oval as David Warner (95), Marnus Labuschagnge (103) and stand-in skipper Steve Smith (93) drove the home side to a commanding 9/473 declared.

After the match, Root angrily chided his bowlers for dropping too short too often, saying they were repeating the same mistakes of their last tour Down Under when they were thumped 4-0.

Stuart Broad (left) and Jimmy Anderson bowled too short on day one. (Photo by William West/AFP)

“I don’t think we bowled the right lengths,” Root said. “If we’re being brutally honest, we needed to bowl fuller.

“As soon as we did in that second innings, we created chances. We need to do that more, we need to be a bit braver, get the ball up there a bit further because when we do, we’re going to create chances and make life difficult.

“That’s one of the frustrating things because it’s something we did four years ago and got it wrong and we didn’t learn from it. We made the same mistakes last week (in Brisbane) – we just have to be better and we’ve got to learn those lessons very quickly.”

English journalist Lawrence Booth said what plenty were thinking. “Root admitting England should have bowled fuller in the first innings. Good of him to say so, but staggering that they made the same mistake as they did four years ago,” he tweeted.

Ex-Australian captain Ponting had no sympathy for Root as he pointed the finger at his bowlers, saying if the 30-year-old wasn’t happy with what they were delivering he should have stepped in and taken action.

Root also came under fire for setting leg-side heavy fields in the first innings that encouraged his quicks to dig the ball in halfway down.

“I nearly fell off my seat when I heard that,” Ponting told cricket.com.au of Root’s post-match comments. “Whose job is it then to make them change? Why are you captain then?

“If you can’t influence your bowlers on what length to bowl, what are you doing on the field?

“Joe Root can come back and say whatever he likes but if you’re captain, you’ve got to be able to sense when your bowlers aren’t bowling where you want them to.

“And if they’re not going to listen, you take them off, simple as that. Give someone else a chance that is going to do it for you. Or you have a really strong conversation with them on the field to tell them what you need.

“That’s what captaincy is all about.

“‘I need you to bowl differently here to how you bowl in England, I need you to bowl differently to how you bowled four years ago, and if you’re not willing to do it then I’ll find someone that can’ — that should have been the conversation five overs into day one.”

Broad’s reaction just about sums up England’s tour. (Photo by Quinn Rooney/Getty Images)

England finally pitched the ball up in Australia’s second innings and — surprise, surprise — enjoyed far more success. Nightwatchman Michael Neser was bowled through the gate, Marcus Harris nicked off for 23 and Smith should have been out first ball when he edged a full delivery from Broad, only to be dropped by wicketkeeper Jos Buttler.