By IANS
New Delhi : Ishant Sharma, who rattled the Australian batsman with his pace in the series Down Under, got a shot in the arm when skipper Ricky Ponting complimented the 19-year-old fulsomely. Sharma’s spell in the Perth Test that got him out was one of the best he had faced in his Test career, Ponting said.
“Ishant has been the standout young player for India in this tour. Everybody has spoken about him. At different times he has bowled very good spells. The spell he bowled to me in Perth on the last day was some of the better bowling I have faced in Test cricket,” Ponting said.
Ponting acknowledged the potential of youngsters in the Indian side but said only time will tell how they develop in the coming years.
“He’s (Ishant) someone who’s going to be around for a while and play a lot of cricket. It’s something I have always said about the Indian team, they always seem to produce good young players. Let’s see how they develop over the next few years,” Ponting said in an interview to NDTV.
The Australian skipper regretted that the present tour would be remembered more for the controversies.
“I think a lot of it from me was really unavoidable. I was not involved in any of those stuff that happened. I was supposed to do captaining my side but with the Harbhajan incident somehow it came out looking badly,” he said.
Ponting did not feel that controversies affected his side’s morale and goaded Harbhajan Singh to raise his performance.
“I don’t think so it happened. If things get tough, you genuinely play a lot more better cricket and I think he (Harbhajan) tried to play exactly the same way.”
Ponting, however, admitted that Harbhajan had a tough series and would be relieved man as he leaves the Australian shores.
“It’s been a hard summer for him. As to say how many wickets he has ended up taking on this tour, I imagine he had a magnificent tour. He had a good tour and he has got crucial wickets. He got two big wickets in Sydney of Symonds and Hayden.”
Ponting said that India will have to perform consistently against top teams to get the tag of No. 1 team in the world.
“We have been at the top for quite some time. We have won every tournament in last decade. India will have to play consistently for a certain period of time to reach there.”