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According to Ponting, Hazlewood, who has 51 wickets to his name in WTC 2023-25, will finish as the leading wicket-taker in the upcoming Border-Gavaskar Trophy.
Nathan Lyon (left), Pat Cummins and Jasprit Bumrah (right). (Picture Credit: AFP, AP)
Former Australian captain and legendary batter Ricky Ponting has snubbed Pat Cummins, Nathan Lyon, and India’s Jasprit Bumrah to pick Josh Hazlewood as the leading wicket-taker in the upcoming five-match Test series between India and Australia.
According to Ponting, who is the all-time leading run scorer for Aussies in Test and ODI cricket, since Cummins and Mitchell Starc are not going to play all five Tests against India, Hazlewood will have a high chance of topping the wicket-takers list.
“I think Hazlewood, out of the Australian quicks, is right at the moment and is probably at the peak of his powers more than the other guys. So I’ll go with him for the leading wicket-taker,” Ponting said on the latest episode of The ICC Review.
Hazlewood is one of the four Australian bowlers to dismiss more than 100 batters in the WTC. In the ongoing WTC 2023-25 cycle, he has accounted for the dismissal of 51 batters so far, which is the most by any Aussie player.
Among the batters, Ponting feels either Rishabh Pant or Steve Smith will score the most runs in the series.
According to him, the likely move of Steve Smith from the top of the order back to No. 4 increases his chances of doing well in the Test series.
“I think Smith, the fact that he’s moved back down from opener to No. 4 probably makes it feel like he’s got more of a point to prove… that maybe he shouldn’t have gone up to open in the first place and that No. 4 is his spot and where he should have probably been the whole time and where he probably finished his career now,” Ponting said.
“And with Rishabh back in the side and probably coming into bat in the middle order when the ball’s probably lost a bit of its shine and a bit of its hardness and the form that he’s in, I’ll go for him as one of the leading run scorers as well,” he added.
Pant finished as the leading run scorer in the recently concluded three-match Test series between India and New Zealand. He scored twin fifties in the third Test played at Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai last week and made 99 in the second inning of the series opener played at M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru.
