Despite India ending up losing the Border-Gavaskar Trophy 1-3, ICC Hall of Famer Ricky Ponting believes that the exploits by India's pace spearhead Jasprit Bumrah are not only the best he has seen of a visiting bowler in Australia but probably the best fast-bowling display of all time.
The 31-year-old Indian quick was adjudged the Player of the Series for his relentless bowling which seriously troubled the Aussie batters. Bumrah finished as the leading wicket-taker in the five-Test series with an incredible tally of 32 scalps.
While Bumrah had the distinction of surpassing Kapil Dev's former record of taking the most Indian wickets in Test matches from Australian soil. In this context, his statistics stood at 64 wickets at 17.15 while Kapil's remained at 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," ICC quoted Ponting as saying on Sunday.
"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.
Bumrah also surpasses Bishen Singh Bedi's tally of 31 wickets to now be India's highest wicket-taker in a Test series in Australia. He did, however, miss bowling in the second innings as Australia batted to avoid innings defeat after stepping out of the field on day 2 owing to back spasms and following some scans.
"A little frustrating but sometimes you have to respect your body, and you can't fight your body. Sometimes you have to accept. Would have loved to bowl on the spiciest wicket of the series. Just had a little discomfort after the first innings," said Bumrah in the post-match presentation ceremony.
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