Ricky Ponting compares the bowling attack of Australia and India

India and Australia are on a roll at the moment. Both teams have won their recent Test matches by innings and are leading the points table in the ICC Test Championship. India’s pace bowling attack has taken some phenomenal strides ahead and the experts have been compelled to compare it with its Australian counterpart. And now, former Australia captain Ricky Ponting, has come up with a comparison between the two sides’ bowling attacks.

Ponting, who had a formidable bowling attack at his disposal when he led the Australian side in the 2000s and now plays a key role in the Baggy Greens’ support system, was quoted as saying by cricket.com.au: “I am taking ours every day of the week. 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.”

During his captaincy, Ponting had under him the likes of Glenn McGrath, Brett Lee and Jason Gillespie and a spinner in Shane Warne who along with a powerful batting line-up, had made Australia a challenging side to beat.

Ricky Ponting feels Aussie spinners better placed than India’s Down Under

However, the 44-year-old Ponting felt that India’s spinners could be lagging behind their Australian counterparts, especially in Australia. He also felt that the presence of a left-arm seamer in Mitchell Starc gives the Aussie attack a bit more diversity.

“But their (India’s) 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.

Nathan Lyon, who took a fifer to floor Pakistan in their second innings in the just concluded second Test in Adelaide, was the joint highest wicket-taker with Bumrah in the series against India last year at home.

India have 360 points from seven matches in the ICC Test Championship at the moment with all wins while Australia have 176 points from equal number of games but with four wins and two losses and one draw.