Ponting urges Aussies to go for the jugular

Cape Town - Former Australia skipper Ricky Ponting feels that Steve Smith's men need to go even harder at England in Adelaide. 

Ponting wants to see Australia close England out of the series and called on the team to be hard on themselves. 

The former captain told : "It's moments like this in series when you need to go even harder.

"When you know that you've got an opposition down and there's things going around their camp, that's when you've got to be harder on yourself as a group of Australian players and make sure they don't let them back into the series. 

"I think back to 2006-07 here in Australia where we had a really good win here in Brisbane. We went to Adelaide, we didn't get off to a good start down there, but we turned that around into a really positive win. 

"And once we won that game there, we knew that we'd broken them and we had to keep our foot on their throats and whitewash the series, which is what we did. 

"And I honestly think there's a chance for this Australian team to do the same thing all over. If they pay attention to their own backyard and pay attention to detail and try and find ways to improve every game, I think they can win every game." 

The one area of concern for Ponting was the hosts batting which leans heavily on runs from skipper Smith, who was the only man to record a century in the first Ashes Test of the 2017/18 series.

Ponting said: "We can't afford to rely on him every game. 

"He's the No.1 batsman in the world and for all the right reasons, but we need a more even contribution from all of our batsman. 

"I didn't see much wrong with the bowling. (Mitchell) Starc probably didn't look at his absolute best, but then he bounced back yesterday and got the team on a bit of a roll with late wickets in the second innings. 

"I thought the quicks would terrorise this English batting line-up and they've started doing that. They won't want to let their foot off now that they've created a few cracks in this line-up already."

The second Test gets underway on Saturday December 2 in Adelaide.