Former Australian captain and one of the greatest batsmen of his time, Ricky Ponting is very disappointed at Australia’s performance and approach to the game in the ongoing Border-Gavaskar Trophy against India.
He believed that Australia were in a much better position in every part of the series as they were playing with full capacity and India went on losing major players to injuries as the series went on.
The team has been marred with a truckload of injuries with Ajinkya Rahane and Cheteshwar Pujara being the only two players to play in all four tests. Despite this India has fought hard and all the new-comers have shown their character as the series is levelled at 1-1 with the visitors needing to chase a whopping 324 runs on Day 5 to win the last Test at Gabba and retain the prestigious Trophy.
Speaking about the marquee series between two cricketing superpowers, former Australian captain Ricky Ponting reckoned that the hosts need to win this series anyhow as even a draw will be worse than their previous defeat at home in 2018-19 Border Gavaskar Trophy. Ricky believes that a drawn series will be a shame for Australia considering that they are with their full strength while India is playing with mostly new players.
“I think a drawn series will be worse than the loss a couple of years ago. That’s the way I look at it, considering how hard India have found it going through 20 players in a series, (Australia) having (David) Warner back for the last couple of games, (Steve) Smith back for all them that they didn’t have last time around. A draw would not only feel like a loss to them but be a worse result than the last series,” Ponting told cricket.com.au.
While 324 runs in Gabba seems a mountainous total with all the cracks coming in to play in the last day of final test match, it would be interesting to see how team India takes this forward. Players like Rohit Sharma, Gill and Rishab Pant will be really important and perhaps deciding factors of the game.
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