Australia captain Ricky Ponting backs India allrounder to be the leading wicket-taker in BGT ’23

Australia was humbled in the first Test of the four-match Test Border-Gavaskar Trophy (BGT) series. The home team beat the Aussies by innings and 132 runs at the Vidarbha Cricket Association Stadium in Nagpur. Rohit Sharma, Ravindra Jadeja, Ravichandran Ashwin, and Axar Patel starred in an exceptional all-around team performance from the team.

The hosts are eyeing a place in the finals of the Global Test Championships to be played at the Oval, London between the 7th and 11th of June 2023. Moreover, they also have a fourth-straight Test series win against the Aussies in sight, having won the last two series away from home and one at home. Amidst all the action, former Australia captain Ricky Ponting has made a bold claim regarding India all-rounder Jadeja’s fate in the series.

Ravindra Jadeja took 7 wickets in the first Test alongside scoring a half-century

Ricky Ponting says the left-hander could very well end up being the series’ leading wicket-taker. The Australia legend had been following Jadeja’s return to first-class cricket and had successfully predicted him to be a menace for the visitors.

“I had seen his return to first-class cricket last week, and he got some 11 wickets or something. As soon as I saw that, I knew Aussies were in for a nightmare,” Ponting said while speaking on a Podcast hosted by Cricket’s Apex body.

“Because of how he (Jadeja) bowls on those sort of wickets – the pace that he bowls, the line that he bowls to right-handers in particular, where he is pitching the ball on the stumps all the time, and one would turn, and one will slide on, like we saw, with the dismissal of Steven Smith today. I mean, they’re two identical deliveries. One just happened to turn, and the other one went straight on and went back through the gate and bowled him,” the 48-year-old added.

“As the series goes on, if his body holds up and he can get through the four Test matches, I think he could very well be the leading wicket-taker in this entire series,” the former Aussie skipper predicted.