Ricky Ponting, Australia's legendary captain, recently discussed England's enigmatic 'Bazball' strategy in the Ashes. The tactic confused the Australian squad, leading to heated debates. Ponting claimed that the new English strategy presented difficulties for the Australian attack.

Australia won the first two Tests in this sensational series. They went to the door of winning the series by playing the traditional style of cricket. ‘Bazball’ still seemed largely ineffective. But then they turned around. England won the third Test. They might have won the fourth Test if rain had not washed away the game for almost two days. Despite that, the English won the last Test and ended the series by 2-2.

Ponting watched this year's Ashes very closely as a commentator. He recounted the experience on SEN Radio's 'Tassie Breakfast' show, where another former Australian captain, Tim Paine, was one of the hosts.

Ponting said frankly, England put Australia in a good trouble with the ‘Bazball’ this time in the Ashes.

"The two contrasting styles of play were great to sit back and watch. There was a lot of talk about Bazball and how England would approach it, and would that style stand up against the quality of the Australian attack - looking back, it probably did,” Ponting said.

However, Ponting has been vocal since then about the ball-changing controversy in the final Test at The Oval. This batting great is still steadfast in his thinking.

"It probably had some of the Australian players, coaches and the captain at different times scratching their head as to how they were going to combat it. Think the 2-2 result, albeit probably slightly biased with a bit of controversy in that last Test with the ball changed the way that it was, that gifted England some conditions they probably shouldn't have got, think the level of cricket played across the series, the 2-2 result was probably fair,” he added.

According to Ponting, despite trailing 2-0, the aggressive batting of the English top-order made a big difference in the series. In particular, he talked about Zak Crawley.

"It was more their top-order batting, I think, [that] we struggled to come to grips with. The way that Crawley and Duckett were able to play at the start of every innings, really, they got England off to flying starts and put pressure straight back on the Australian attack. When that momentum started to build it was hard for the Australians to rein it back in,” Ponting further said.

"Zak Crawley has got to take a lot of credit, he was the one going into the series who was under the most pressure. That 180 he got at Manchester was as good a Test match batting as you could see…as I said it had (Pat Cummins) and the boys scratching their heads as to how they were going to bowl at him.

"Think even the Australian boys might be sitting back and looking at the way they played, what can we do a little bit better to combat that in the future. Think a lot of other countries around the world might be looking at it as well and saying if we want to compete with Australia maybe this is the way we have to go."