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‘Ricky Ponting put the needle in’: Ex-England player on verbal volleys between former Australia captain and Ollie Robinson

The verbal war of words between former Australia captain Ricky Ponting and current England bowler Ollie Robinson has attracted the attention of fans and pundits alike. Former England batter Mark Butcher is the latest to share his thoughts and according to the southpaw it is the Australians who pounce on any chance they get.

 

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It all happened after Robinson gave Usman Khawaja a fiery send-off after dismissing him on Day 3 of the first Test at Edgbaston. Robinson then defended his actions and named Ponting in his statement. “We’ve all seen Ricky Ponting and other Aussies do the same to us, and just because the shoe is on the other foot it’s not received well,” Robinson had said.
This caught the attention of the former Aussie skipper who did not back down and slammed the English pacer for his behaviour.
Now Butcher opened up on Ponting’s verbal war and said, “There has been a lot of chatter in the aftermath of the first Test. Ricky Ponting has, of course, put the needle in – just give him, or any Australian great, the opportunity to do so and they will take it.”
“I spent an enormous amount of my career, nearly all of it in fact, getting beaten Australian teams with no mercy. So the idea that you would almost offer up some sort of spectacle for people, with the result not mattering too much, it doesn’t sit very well with me,” he wrote in his column for the Daily Mail.
Earlier, when Ponting was asked for his take on the matter, the 48-year-old had said, “As I said after Ollie Robinson said what he said, this England cricket team hasn’t played against Australia and they’ll find out pretty quickly what playing Ashes cricket and playing against a good Australian cricket team is all about.”
“And if Ollie Robinson hasn’t learned that already after last week, then he’s a slow learner. Some of the things he had to say – I mean he even brought my name into it, which I felt was a little bit unusual, but for me it’s water off a duck’s back,” Ponting had told the ICC Review podcast.

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