Ricky Ponting suggests two major changes that can help England improve after Ashes loss

Following their humiliating series defeat to Australia in the Ashes, much has been made of the state of first-class cricket in England.

Michael Atherton believes the County Championship needs to become "a shorter, more condensed, more high-quality competition", Moeen Ali has described the pitches "very difficult for batters" and Kevin Pietersen has proposed the radical idea of reducing the number of counties altogether.

However, Ricky Ponting believes there are two major changes England could make to their first-class system which would lead to them being more competitive in future tours of Australia.

Ponting feels England's players would benefit from using the Kookaburra ball more often and playing on flatter pitches, telling cricket.com.au : "We've been through this in Australia.

Ricky Ponting believes England would be more competitive on future tours of Australia if they faced the Kookaburra ball more often and played on flatter pitches (Andy Kearns/Getty Images)

"You wind the clock back a few years ago when we had our struggles in England, we changed conditions, we changed the ball, we changed everything because we were poor in those conditions.

"England might need to have a look at how they can make their conditions more suitable to ours.

"They play well in England still but they don't play well when they come here – so maybe they play more with the Kookaburra ball.

"Maybe they flatten the wickets out a little bit so there's not as much swing and seam, so the batters are making bigger scores and batting for longer periods of time.

"It might be the exact same blip that [Australia] had to have three or four years ago."

England captain Joe Root has acknowledged that changes need to be made to English first-class cricket.

"There's some very talented players within this squad and we have to find ways of upskilling ourselves and each other, and managing pressure points within the game better," he said.

"Unfortunately, where the game is at in our country right now, the only place you can really learn that is in the hardest environment.

"For what is quite a young batting group, they're having to learn out here. The environment that they're coming from, it's not readying them well enough for Test cricket."