England currently holds the upper hand in the ongoing first Ashes 2023 Test match against Australia being played at Edgbaston ground in Birmingham they have picked three wickets for 107 runs by the end of day 4 as the visitors need 281 runs to win the match.
Meanwhile, Australia will come out on day 5, confident of getting the 174 runs more needed to win the match and go 1-0 up in the five-Test series.
During lunch on day four, former Australia captain Ricky Ponting and former England skipper Kevin Pietersen got involved in a war of words. Ponting showed a glimpse of his old cricketing days, where he channeled his calm and composed attitude to take down Pietersen.
England was 155/4 at the lunch break thanks to Joe Root’s stunning counterattack. Pietersen was all praise for Root, who executed a couple of reverse ramps at the start of the day to get the scoreboard rolling.
He was dismissed by Nathan Lyon, for 46 runs trying to swipe across the line.
"Joe Root just owned the game. He ran the game, he was pure quality and he just owned that space. All of this lot (Australian players) were just scratching their heads going 'what do we do?”, Kevin Pietersen said.
Ponting did not interrupt Pietersen. He remained calm throughout. And as Pietersen ended, he brutally shut him down with a savage seven-word reply. He said: "Well he's out now, he got 40."
Here is the video:
