Joe Root seeks Ricky Ponting's advice on poor conversion rate

Joe Root

England's premier batsman Joe Root who will be leading the England team in the Ashes series revealed that he had sought advice from Australian great Ricky Ponting on how to convert his fifties into hundreds.

"He said he wanted to have a bit of a chat about his cricket and where he felt he was in his career," Ponting told cricket.com.au.

"For me, (his conversion rate issue has) one hundred per cent just got to be a mental hurdle that he can't quite get over, and the more you start thinking about little things like that, the harder they are to put them out of your mind," Ponting said.

Considered as part of the Fab Four, which includes Virat Kohli, Kane Williamson and Steve Smith, Joe Root has the lowest number of centuries amongst the other three mentioned and often gets out cheaply after scoring a fifty.

"I'm sure every time he gets to 50 now, the next 50 runs he scores will probably be the hardest runs he ever scores when it should be the other way around; the first 50 should be the hardest and the second fifty be the easiest, but it always looks like it's just getting a little bit more difficult for him.

"But like I said (to him), if he keeps putting himself in that situation enough where he gets to that fifty mark, it won't be long before he starts turning them into hundreds." Ponting said.

Fresh from a World Cup triumph, England faces Australia in the first Ashes Test on August 1, 2019.

With inputs from IANS

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