Former Australian skipper Ricky Ponting questioned England's skipper Ben Stokes's comments on Jonny Bairstow's dismissal on Day 5 of the second Test match of the Ashes 2023 series.
While many fans have deemed Bairstow's dismissal as debatable, Stokes also went on to question the decision and suggest in the post-match presentation that the dismissal occurred on the final delivery of Green's over and should have allowed Bairstow to depart his crease and speak with his captain immediately.
But Ponting cleared his stance on this by saying that the only relevant aspect about the entire dismissal was whether the onfield umpire had declared the over being complete or not.
In the latest episode of the ICC Review, Ponting said, "There's no (difference). There's none because the ball's still alive until the umpire calls over and the ball is alive and it doesn't matter if it's the fourth, first, second, or third ball, you still have to ask permission to leave your crease and if you do that, and the fielding captain says, yes you can leave your crease, then the ball is deemed as being dead."
Ponting believes that it was easy for Stokes to make a bold claim about the entire incident as he had a lot of time to think and formulate his answer after the end of the match.
"It's pretty easy for Ben at the end (of the match), to sit down and give that point of view. But he was actually out there as the batting captain of his team. He could have asked, there and then, in the heat of the battle, if he was thinking clearly like he said he was three hours later in post-game," Ponting noted.
"If he was thinking enough, he would have said that to the umpires: 'You know, was it over? Had you started to move? Is the ball dead?' They were the questions that had to be answered then and not at the end of the game when he said it," Ponting added.
Ponting further went on to suggest that since his captaincy days times have changed and now modern-day players tend to take more liberties during their time at the crease.
"I just think that the modern game's a bit different than it once was with respecting the captain of the fielding team. I know when I was playing, and the ball had gone through to the keeper, you wouldn't dare leave your crease until you actually asked the opposition captain if it was OK and if the ball was dead and Jonny hadn't done that," Ponting signed off.
England will now face Australia in the third Test match of the Ashes 2023 series on July 6 at the Yorkshire Cricket Ground.
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