Ricky Ponting Picks between Indian & Australian Bowling Units

For some time now, the Indian pace attack has been getting the accolades it deserves.In the recent home series against Bangladesh, Indian seamers contributed to 33 of the 39 wickets to fall, including all of the 19 wickets in the second test. A drastic improvement when compared to times when it was about removing shine on the new ball in a home test so that the spinners could come in quickly. This brought praises from many including former Australian captain Ricky Ponting.

The pace attack consisting of the likes of Ishant Sharma, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Shami, Umesh Yadav, Bhuvaneshwar Kumar is being compared to the vintage West Indian fast bowling line up or the Australian bowling during the decade when they dominated world cricket.

During one such comparisons, Ricky Ponting pointed out where the Australian bowling line up is better than the Indian bowlers. Although he felt that India has “fantastic” bowlers, he said Nathan Lyon’s versatility gives them an edge over the Indian bowling unit.

“I am taking ours every day of the week,” Ponting was quoted as saying by Cricket.com.au. “India’s is fantastic; (Jasprit) Bumrah and (Mohammed) Shami have been amazing for the last couple of years and then you put Umesh Yadav into the equation with Ishant Sharma, they’ve got some very, very good fast bowlers. And when you put (Ravichandran) Ashwin and (Ravindra) Jadeja in there, their attack is very good.”

“But their spinners struggle more in Australia, Nathan Lyon has a much better record in Australia than the Indian spinners have. And I love the variation we have with Mitchell Starc in the line-up; that left-armer just provides a little bit of something different. And he’s bowling as well as I’ve ever seen him, so there are some even better signs for this Australian attack,” he added.

In 2019, Indian pacers have picked up 95 wickets at an average of 15.16 with a strike rate better than ever in test history.