Former Australian captain Ricky Ponting is finding it difficult to comprehend that Australia were not good enough to beat an inexperienced Indian team.
It was literally a India A team as none of the first choice bowlers played in the final Test match at the Gabba. However, still the Indian bowlers were able to scalp 20 wickets in the match.
In fact, all the Indian bowlers had collectively scalped 13 wickets before the fourth Test match at the Gabba, Brisbane. Mohammed Siraj, who had made his debut in the Boxing Day Test match at the MCG was the most experienced bowler as he had played two Test matches.
Washington Sundar and T Natarajan, made their Test debuts and both of them didn’t have a lot of First-Class experience. Furthermore, Shardul Thakur was playing his second Test match but he had bowled only 10 balls in his debut Test against West Indies.
Thus, Indian young players deserve a lot of credit for going past Australia without the services of Virat Kohli, Mohammed Shami, Jasprit Bumrah, Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja in the final Test match.
“I’m quite shocked that Australia weren’t quite good enough to win this series. The cold hard facts of it are pretty much that it was the India A team that played this Test match and (India) still won. Considering everything the Indian team has been through in the last five or six weeks, with the captain leaving, all the injuries they’ve had – they’ve been through 20 players – (Australia) have been at full-strength, bar Davey (Warner) missing early on, so it’s really hard to comprehend,” said Ricky Ponting while talking to cricket.com.au.
Ponting added that India went on to win the crucial stages in the series and that is why they are the winners whereas Australia couldn’t grab their opportunities, which was the difference between the two sides.
“It’s probably not even (India’s) second-picked team because you think of Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Ishant Sharma and those guys who didn’t even make it out here. Rohit Sharma turned up for the last two Test matches only. They’ve played really good, tough, hard Test match cricket day-in and day-out. India have won all the big moments in every Test match and Australia have fallen short. That’s been the difference between the two teams. They have done it really well and they thoroughly deserve to win the series … because (of) how resilient they’ve been.”
The Indian team deserve all the credit and the youngsters were able to keep their calm and deliver the goods despite being on the backfoot. The resilience and the fight which the Indian team showed deserves a lot of credit as they had to overcome the adversities and the injuries.
India will now next face England in the four-match Test series in home conditions.
