"You might see in under-12s sort of stuff" - Allan Border on England's 'odd' field placings in the 1st Ashes Test

Allan Border has highlighted that England's odd field setting in Australia's first innings of the first Ashes Test was like under-12 cricket.

England bowled out Australia for 386 at Edgbaston in Birmingham and ended a rain-truncated Day 3 (Sunday, June 18) at 28/2 in their second innings. The hosts had declared their first innings at 393/8 on Day 1 to bowl a few overs at the Australian openers before Stumps.

During an interaction on SEN Breakfast, Border was asked about Ben Stokes and Pat Cummins' contrasting approaches to captaincy. Regarding the England skipper's field placements, he said:

"It's interesting the way England are playing, whether it's sustainable over the course of the whole Test series, that remains to be seen. It is interesting to see odd field placings and different things going on, the field you might see in under-12s sort of stuff."

However, the former Australian skipper acknowledged that such odd field settings play with the batter's mind:

"We have got a little ring field with blokes surrounding like 10 meters from the bat. Looks pretty odd definitely, against the norm, but it just plays with your head a little bit. I really enjoyed watching it unfold."

Stokes managed to get rid of Usman Khawaja with an umbrella-like field. The Australian opener, who was batting on 141, took a few steps down the wicket and tried to play Ollie Robinson towards the off side, only to get yorked and bowled.

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"I think initially we were" - Allan Border on whether Pat Cummins has been too conservative with his field placements

Zak Crawley smashed a four off the first ball of the Test match.

Allan Border was asked whether Pat Cummins has been too conservative with his field placements, to which he responded:

"I think initially we were. Day 1 - we got to bowl with a brand new ball with a pretty good bowling attack and we had deep points and deep backward squares. I thought we just missed a beat there in fighting fire with fire."

The cricketer-turned-analyst added that the England batters were allowed to rotate the strike easily:

"Yes, it was a pretty flat track and very batter-friendly, but I still think they were allowed to get off-strike, accumulate a lot of runs just through singles, and then they were hitting good shots amongst all that, the run rate was phenomenal."

However, Border concluded by observing that Australia remained in the game by striking blows at regular intervals:

"I think we paid a bit of price on that Day 1 with being a little bit defensive but in saying that, we stayed in the game by taking wickets as well along the way."

Several cricket experts criticized Australia's conservative field settings on Day 1. England ended up scoring at 5.03 runs per over in their first innings despite the visitors' slightly defensive approach.