Former Australian captain Ricky Ponting showered praise on India’s gun fast bowler Jasprit Bumrah for his scintillating performance in the Border-Gavaskar trophy against Australia. The home team regained the elusive trophy after 10 years after winning the SCG Test by six wickets.
However, Bumrah’s performance stood out in the series as he bagged 32 scalps in five Test matches at an average of 13.06 and thus he was awarded Player of the Series for his stellar show throughout the five games.
Bumrah was the lone warrior in team’s bowling attack and he looked threatening in each of his spells. The ace pacer also bowled with an impressive strike rate of 28.38 and proved to be a thorn in Australia’s flesh.
Ricky Ponting said on ICC Review, “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.”
On the other hand, Jasprit Bumrah could not bowl in the second innings of the SCG Test due to back spasm after India set a target of 162 for the Australians. Speaking at the post-game interview, Bumrah said they have a lot of talent in their group despite the series loss.
Bumrah said after the loss, “Sometimes all these learnings are important. Young players come up and they score runs, have success through a certain way, but in Test cricket you have to sometimes adapt to the situation, make your game work in a different manner as well. These learnings will help us in the future. They’ve gained a lot of experience; they’ll only go from strength to strength from here. Australia is not the easiest place to play cricket, but we’ve shown we have a lot of talent in our group, it’s all about adapting and learning new things about your game.”
Indian fans will hope that Bumrah’s injury is not that serious and he should be fit to play in the Champions Trophy if it is the case.
