Ricky Ponting rips Kevin Pietersen as Ashes tweet backfires brutally

Kevin Pietersen was left with egg on his face on Saturday as an ill-timed tweet about Nathan Lyon backfired spectacularly.

The former England batsman was watching the third day's play in the second Ashes Test when he became fed-up with his countrymen's tactics against the spin of Lyon.

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Taking to Twitter, Pietersen wrote: “Can someone please smack Lyon? FFS!”

“Off-spinner with zero variations and bowling on world cricket’s flattest road!”

The 'road' Pietersen was referring to was the seemingly flat Adelaide Oval pitch, which saw Australia make 9-473 before declaring in their first innings.

However it was his comment about Lyon having 'zero variations' that went horribly wrong for KP.

After the tweet, Lyon proceeded to claim the wickets of Ollie Pope, Chris Woakes and Ollie Robinson as he got the ball to spin and bounce viciously on the Adelaide pitch.

He had Pope caught at bat-pad on a ball that ripped off the surface before bowling Woakes through the gate and trapping Robinson lbw.

Pietersen's tweet couldn't have gone any worse, and Aussie legend Ricky Ponting was happy to point it out live on air on Channel 7.

As Ponting highlighted, Lyon dismissed Pietersen four times in Test cricket.

The only spinners with more success against KP were Shane Warne, Muttiah Muralitharan and Saeed Ajmal.

“Four hundred Test wickets, Kev,” Ponting said in commentary for Channel 7.

“Lyon to Pietersen. Lyon got him four times for 163 runs and at the Adelaide Oval, the world’s flattest cricket wicket, Kevin Pietersen, none for 14 off 23 balls with 15 dots and only one boundary.

“Come on Kev.”

After Lyon sent Woakes packing, Ponting said: “I wonder if Kev’s still watching.

“The GOAT’s just taken another one. This is high-class bowling, pushed him back. They left the field open on the off-side, inside edge back on the stumps.

“This is off spin of the highest class.”

However Pietersen wasn't backing down on Sunday, tweeting: “It’s quite bizarre how many Australians responded so negatively to my tweet about Lyon.

“The Aussie way would be to attack and NOT play him like these English batters. Because he’s got 400 wickets you’re not allowed to attack him?! Strange!”

Mitchell Starc's pink-ball domination continues

On Saturday, Mitchell Starc's pink-ball mastery put Australia in command of the second Ashes Test, taking a 282-run lead to stumps on day three with nine wickets in hand.

On another dominant day for Australia, Starc became the first man to reach 50 pink-ball Test wickets in a format he has quickly made his own.

Starc's 4-37 on Saturday helped create an England capitulation, going from 2-150 in reply to Australia's 9-473 declared to 236 all out.

Steve Smith then opted not to enforce the follow on, as Australia went to stumps at 1-45 after David Warner was the victim of a mid-pitch mix-up on 13.

"I might go for a few extra runs sometimes but I'm trying to bowl that full length," Starc said.

"If we look at day one, there's only five per cent of the balls or something England were hitting the stump.

"So you learn from that as an opposition. But we've also played a fair bit with the pink ball.

"The quicks we've got in this game generally bowl that full length anyway and generally hit the stumps more."

with AAP

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