ICC
In his third Test tour Down Under, Jasprit Bumrah put an incredible shift with the ball to make India’s case for a fiercely-contested Border-Gavaskar Series.
The 31-year-old finished as the leading wicket-taker in the five-Test series with an incredible tally of 32 scalps.
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 wickets at 17.15 compared to Kapil’s 51 at 24.58.
ICC Hall of Famer Ricky 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.
“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.
Bumrah, who had captained India to a win in Perth at the beginning of the series, didn’t bowl on the final day of the series in Sydney after experiencing back spasms on Saturday.
Dejected on missing out having a go in the second innings, Bumrah conceded post-match, “Little frustrating but sometimes you have to respect your body, you can’t fight your body,” Bumrah said. “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.”
