Sydney [Australia], January 5 (ANI): ICC Hall of Famer Ricky Ponting believed that Jasprit Bumrah’s exploits are not only the best he’s seen of a visiting bowler in Australia but probably the best fast-bowling display of all time.
In his third Test tour Down Under, Jasprit Bumrah made an incredible shift with the ball to make India’s case for a fiercely-contested Border-Gavaskar Series.
The 31-year-old finished as the leading wicket-taker in the five-Test series with an incredible tally of 32 scalps. During his iconic run, Bumrah also overtook former India captain Kapil Dev to hold the record for most Test wickets by an Indian in Australia – 64 wickets at 17.15 compared to Kapil’s 51 at 24.58.
“No doubt, it’s probably the best series of fast bowling I’ve ever seen. Yes, they had good conditions, the fast bowlers, for most of this series. But when you watched him (Bumrah) bowl compared to anyone else in the series, he made batting look so much harder. There’s a lot of quality batting in that Australian top-order as well but he made all of them at different times look silly,” Ponting said as quoted by the ICC.
Bumrah, who had captained India to a win in Perth at the beginning of the series, didn’t bowl on the final day of the series in Sydney after experiencing back spasms on Saturday.
Dejected on missing out on having a go in the second innings, Bumrah conceded post-match, “Little frustrating but sometimes you have to respect your body, you can’t fight your body,” Bumrah said. “Disappointing, probably missed out on the spiciest wicket of the series. I felt a bit of discomfort during my second spell in the first innings.”
Coming to the SCG Test, India won the toss and elected to bat first. India was off to a disappointing start yet again as the top order threw away their wickets, especially Virat Kohli (17) who continued his struggles with outside off-stump deliveries.
However, the fight by Pant (40 in 98 balls, with three fours and a six), Ravindra Jadeja (26 in 95 balls, with three fours) and skipper Jasprit Bumrah (22 in 17 balls, with three fours and a six) pushed India to 185/10 in 72.2 overs.
Scott Boland (4/31) was the pick of the bowlers for the Aussies and once again a thorn in the eyes of Indian batters. Mitchell Starc took 3/49 while Pat Cummins got 2/37.
In their first innings, Australia lost wickets at regular intervals even when Jasprit Bumrah (2/33) walked off the field due to an injury scare. Under the stand-in skipper Virat, India continued to dominate the Aussies, skittling them out for just 181 runs and taking a four-run lead. Debutant Beau Webster (57 in 105 balls, with five fours) had a fine showing with the bat and Steve Smith (33 in 57 balls, with four boundaries and a six) showed some attacking intent.
Prasidh Krishna (3/42) and Mohammed Siraj (3/51) were the top bowlers for India.
With a lead of four runs, India was off to a promising start thanks to Yashasvi Jaiswal (22 in 35 balls, with four boundaries) and KL Rahul (13) as they put on a 45-run stand. But Boland (6/45) troubled the Indian batting once again. Pant did put up a counter-attack with 61 in 33 balls (six fours and four sixes), but India was bundled out for 157 runs, setting up 162 for the Aussies to win. Bumrah could not bowl in the final innings.
Australia was in trouble for a while during the chase of 162 runs at 58/3, but knocks from Usman Khawaja (41 in 45 balls, with four boundaries), Travis Head (34* in 38 balls, with four boundaries) and Webster (39* in 34 balls, with six fours) guided the team to a six-wicket win, despite fight put up by Prasidh Krishna (3/65).
Boland was the ‘Player of the Match’ for his ten-wicket haul while Bumrah walked away with the ‘Player of the Series’ award with 32 wickets. (ANI)
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