‘He made Australia top-order look silly’: Ponting’s ultimate ‘best series of fast bowling’ praise for Jasprit Bumrah

Legendary Australia captain Ricky Ponting reserved massive praise for Indian pacer Jasprit Bumrah for his exploits in the recently concluded Border-Gavaskar Trophy. Bumrah left a lasting impact in the five-match Test series with his astonishing performance against Australia. He terrorised the Australian batting line-up with his bowling and ended up claiming 32 wickets at a strike rate of 28.38.

Bumrah single-handedly kept India in the contests in almost every match in the series, as his absence from the ball in the fourth innings at the SCG Test pulled the visitors down. The 31-year-old had some issues with his back and didn’t bowl in the second innings of the final Test as India failed to defend the 162-run target.

Ponting was highly impressed with Bumrah’s performance and rated him best in the business. He said he had witnessed the best series of fast bowling by a pacer he has ever seen.

“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 told ICC.

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 scalps at 17.15 compared to Kapil’s 51 at 24.58.

The two-time World Cup-winning skipper said that Bumrah made the top-class Australian batting line-up look silly on several occasions in the series.

“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.

‘Missed out on the spiciest wicket of the series’: Bumrah on injury

Bumrah expressed his disappointment for not bowling in the second innings of the SCG Test but revealed he had some issues while bowling during the first innings when he came out to bowl his second spell.

“Little frustrating but sometimes you have to respect your body, you can’t fight your body,” Bumrah said in the post-match presentation. “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.”