Ricky Ponting has showered massive praise on Indian pace spearhead Jasprit Bumrah, who returned with 32 wickets from the five Tests in Australia. Former skipper Ponting believes that 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.
During his iconic run in the five-Test series, the 31-year-old Bumrah 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,” Ponting said.
“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,” he added.
Notably, Bumrah didn’t bowl on the final day of the series in Sydney after experiencing back spasms on Saturday. He was frustrated at missing out on bowling on the “spiciest wicket of the series”.
“Little frustrating but sometimes you have to respect your body, you can’t fight your body,” said Bumrah.
“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,” he added.
Asked about the discussion on the Sunday morning, Bumrah said: “The chat this morning was about the same thing, about having belief and showing character. Lots of ifs and buts, the whole series was fought hard, we were in the game today as well, not like we were out of it, this is how Test cricket goes.”
“Being in the game for longer, creating pressure, absorbing pressure and playing to the situation are all important. You have to adapt to the situations and these learnings will help us in the future,” he added.