Melbourne: Former Australian Skipper Ricky Ponting felt Usman Khawaja could replace David Warner for a second ash test if the opening mixture was ruled out from the game due to injury.
England and Australia currently plays the first ash test.
Warner on Friday did not take the field after receiving a blow on the chest while hitting on the second day of the first test.
“If (Warner) can’t play, I think it might be incoming and opening batting.
Even though he hasn’t done it for the last few years for Queensland he did it for Australia before,” Quotes Cricket.com.au.
Ponting said.
“He is clearly in very good condition, so I think it might be a way to go.
I think he is quite experienced, but the fact that he hasn’t done it for a while will be a little concern,” he added.
The Australian opener dough received a brutal blow in the same place when deploying from Ben Stokes England who further put Warner in discomfort.
“It’s very worried that he’s not out there at all.
We will have a better idea when he is bat or if he melts at all in the second half,” Ponting said.
“I noticed that after he was hit, he came out after one of the breaks and you could see that he had a few (chest) guards in the area.
I was a little worried about that because I had never seen a chest guard before,” he added.
“Even if it’s just bruising, I would think that he would be out there lower so there might be a little more than what we heard,” Ponting said.
Come to the game, Joe Root and Dawid Malan continued to hold a British battle because the two batter trees hit a visitor ship at the end of day 3 of the first ash test that was ongoing here in Gabba, Brisbane on Friday.
In stump, the UK score reads 220/2 – 58 run behind.
Malan and root have played an unbeatable beats of 80 and 86 runs each.