Former Australia pacer Glenn McGrath on Wednesday praised senior India Ishant Sharma for reinventing himself, and also lauded Mohammed Shami and Jasprit Bumrah despite Virat Kohli’s side crashing to a heavy defeat against New Zealand in Wellington.
“Ishant has a lot of experience, the way he’s comeback in the last couple years, it’s been impressive,” said the 50-year-old, who was in Mumbai for a Tourism Australia event. “I thought his career might have been finished at international level, but he has reinvented himself and he is bowling well.”
He added: “Shami bowls good pace and is deceptive in the pace he bowls. He can move the ball around and is very experienced, just knows the game so well.
“Jasprit is unique with the way he goes about it short run up, powers through the crease, can swing the ball, good control and good pace [in] second third spells. And then on top of that, there are the other quicks and a spinner.”
McGrath reposed his faith on the Indian bowling unit despite Bumrah and Shami suffering from indifferent form lately.
While Ishant Sharma returned with a five-wicket haul, his pace colleagues managed just one wicket each as New Zealand posted a match-deciding first-innings score of 348 despite being 216/6.
“I still have total faith in the Indian [bowling] lineup,” the Australian pace legend said.
“They had a few injuries off late. Sharma is coming back and he did get five wickets. Bumrah had a couple of injuries and he is coming back. So, yeah, I think the Indian bowling attack is world class and there is no doubt about that.”
He added: “I don’t have any issues with the bowling attack. You don’t lose form overnight. It was just one of those things where the toss made a huge difference, but you still got to score runs.”
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