|| Desk Report ||

Australian great Ricky Ponting dubbed Ben Stokes as ‘the heartbeat’ of England’s Test team, considering his impact and never-say-die attitude.

Ponting said Australia need to curb his influence to bring up any positive result in the upcoming Ashes.

During a World Cup to savour for the Englishman, Stokes confirmed his reputation as one of the world's dominant allrounders in any format, and Ponting believes the cricket world is seeing an improved, refined version of the player who first arrived on the international scene almost eight years ago.

Stokes missed the 2017-18 Ashes in Australia due to his ongoing involvement in a court case following a street fight in Bristol, and since his return to Test cricket following that series, he is yet to register a century or take a five-wicket haul in 13 matches.

However, Ponting is wary of what a damaging impact he can have with bat or ball – comparing him to English great Andrew Flintoff – and stressed the importance of Australia limiting his impact early in the series.

"It seems like he's playing with a lot of maturity," he told cricket.com.au. "He doesn't seem like he's in much of a rush now as he might have been.

"The thing about his personality as well, he's a big, strong, brash guy with a bit of an ego … and I think as a younger person probably everything was flat out – one speed.

"To me, (during the World Cup) it seems like he (was) able to understand situations and play situations accordingly. That's a bit of maturity and understanding his own game and understanding what his team needs him to do."

"He's a very, very good player," he said. "Some of the innings I've seen him play in Test cricket have been as good a ball striking innings as we've seen from the best batsman in the world.