Legendary Australia captain Ricky Ponting said that Team India’s recent win in Perth in the Border Gavaskar Trophy series opener is the team’s greatest overseas win as well. However, India had come from a poor series against New Zealand at home and then bounced back well. They won the match by 295 runs, after scoring pretty less in the first innings.
“It’ll go down, I’m sure, as one of India’s greatest ever Test match wins, and it probably should. With the players down that they had… Rohit (Sharma), not there, (Shubman) Gil, not there and (Mohammed) Shami not there… It’s an amazing win. After getting bowled out for 150, it was a bit, yeah, a shock win. And they’ve won by the best part of 300 runs. So it’s an incredible turnaround,” said Ponting while speaking to Cricbuzz in Jeddah, on the sidelines of the IPL auction, representing Punjab Kings as their head coach as well.
Ricky Ponting tried to analyse why Team India held the upper hand throughout the Test and opened up on the importance of the toss.
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“Winning the toss was a big advantage. I said that at the time. The record is that the team that won (at the Optus Stadium) batted first. Every time,” he said. “Oh, no doubt, Bumrah led the way. The way he bowled at the start of the first innings was incredible. You know, with Shami not being there, he had to stand up and lead the way. And being the captain, he did it. He did it on field with his leadership, and he did it with the ball in hand.”
“Obviously, Virat (Kohli, who scored an unbeaten century) had to do what he did in the second innings and he set the game up along with (Yashasvi) Jaiswal. But I think their whole bowling group stood up late on Day One. The second half of the first day was probably where the game changed,” he shared.
“One point I did make, and I think it’s really true. I’m not sure how much (this) has been spoken about here, but I think Indian batsmen now play better away from home than they play at home. I think they’re better players of fast bowling now than they are of spin bowling. And I think that’s been proven this (last) week. To be able to go to Perth, have a young kid like Jaiswal make 100 (161) on that wicket, even Nitish Reddy being able to make 40 (41) in the first innings… I think they (India) play better on those wickets than they do on the slow spinning tracks that they’ve been getting at home. I mean, there’s no way in the world New Zealand would have beaten them on good wickets,” he further added.
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Ricky Ponting had also predicted that the final outcome of the BGT would be 3-1 as well.
“No, I have not changed my view. I’ll stay with that. India won the first (Test). I said 3-1 at the start. Yes, I’ll stick with it. But it’s a long way back. The Aussies have now got a fair bit of work to do,” he concluded.
