Ricky Ponting on Jasprit Bumrah: Former Australian captain Ricky Ponting on Sunday praised Indian fast bowler Jasprit Bumrah, who took 32 wickets in five matches of the Border Gavaskar Trophy, saying that he proved the host team’s top order weak at different times.
Bumrah took the most wickets in the series but despite this India lost the series 1–3. However, Bumrah was declared the best player of the series. Bumrah has taken 64 wickets in Australia which is an Indian record. Earlier this record was in the name of Kapil Dev who had taken 51 wickets in Australia.
Ponting, the legendary batsman of his time, believes that Bumrah’s performance is the best performance so far by any bowler on the tour of Australia. According to the ICC website, Ponting said, “There is no doubt that out of all the series I have seen, this series is the best in terms of fast bowling. Certainly the conditions were favorable for the fast bowlers in the entire series but when you saw him (Bumrah ) compared to anyone else I saw bowling, he made it extremely difficult to bat.”
He said, “Australia has good batsmen in the top order but he (Bumrah) left no stone unturned to prove them weak at different times.” Due to injury, Bumrah could not bowl in the second innings of Australia in the fifth and final Test match. Australia won this match by six wickets.
Australia won by 6 wickets in the fifth test match of Border-Gavaskar Trophy. This is a big defeat for India. Australia won the series 3-1. However, when fast bowler Prasidh Krishna bowled well and took three wickets, the hopes of the Indian team also increased. But, Australia’s batsmen displayed patience and maintained a strong hold on the match. Australia won this series 3-1.
By lunch on the third day, Australia had scored 71 runs for three wickets in 13 overs. Australia had got the target of 162 runs from India. India did not have a good start at the start of the third day’s play. The team could add only 16 runs to the score of 141. India’s second innings ended in 45 minutes.
India’s bowling was not good when they came to defend 162 runs. Prasidh and Mohammed Siraj failed everywhere in their line and length and gave away 35 runs in the first three overs, which included eight wides and four leg-byes, apart from which Sam Constas hit three quick fours.
But Prasidh finally got his bowling right and dismissed the aggressive looking opener Constas for 22 runs. Australia’s score had just reached 52 runs when Prasidh dismissed Marnus Labuschagne. Steve Smith fell just one run short of scoring 10,000 runs in Tests. Steve Smith, who had scored 9,999 Test runs in Tests, became the third victim of Prasidh.
Australia still needed 100 runs and three wickets had fallen. The team needed a good partnership. Travis Head and Usman Khawaja did this work for Australia. After lunch, both of them took single-double and attacked many weak balls.
Australia’s score had reached 104. Only 58 runs were needed to win. Meanwhile, Usman Khawaja was caught by Rishabh Pant behind the wicket on the ball of Mohammad Siraj. Khawaja scored 41 runs in 45 balls. Which included 3 fours.
