Matthew Hayden turns up Ashes heat on ‘forgettable cricketer’ Ollie Robinson

The former Australian greats Matthew Hayden and Ricky Ponting have rounded on England’s Ollie Robinson after the seamer’s provocative display in the Ashes opener at Edgbaston.

Robinson was happy to offer Australia some verbals on and off the pitch during England’s tense two-wicket defeat, delivering an expletive-laden send off to the centurion Usman Khawaja and then defending his behaviour in a press conference where he asked: “If you can’t handle that, what can you handle?”

The combative seamer took match figures of five for 98 in the first Test and was not sanctioned by the match referee, but his conduct appeared to rile two men who were far from shrinking violets in their own playing days.

Speaking on SEN Radio in Australia, Hayden took aim at Robinson’s lack of express pace and suggested the tourists should be looking to hammer him out of the attack.

Declining to use Robinson’s name, Hayden said: “The other bloke, he’s a forgettable cricketer. A fast bowler that is bowling 124km/h nude nuts, and he’s got a mouth from the south. Someone like him, you can just go: ‘Brother, I’m coming at ya.’ Davey Warner can do that, right. He can just say: ‘You’re bowling 120.’”

Ponting, who was name-checked by Robinson as someone who had sledged England in the past, also rose to the bait. “If he is sitting back thinking about me, then no wonder he bowled like the way that he did in that game, if he’s worried about what I did 15 years ago,” he told the ICC Review Podcast.

“This England cricket team hasn’t played against Australia and they’ll find out pretty quickly what playing Ashes cricket, and playing against a good Australian cricket team, is all about. If Ollie Robinson hasn’t learned that already after last week, then he’s a