The three-time World Cup winner said that Arshdeep is a better bowler in death overs than Harshit Rana.
Former Australia captain Ricky Ponting has said that he would prefer Arshdeep Singh over Harshit Rana to replace the injured Jasprit Bumrah in India’s playing XI for the 2025 Champions Trophy. He likened Arshdeep’s skillset to that of Bumrah. Bumrah has been ruled out of the Champions Trophy due to a back spasm he picked up during the final Test of the Border Gavaskar Trophy (BGT) in Australia earlier this year.
“I would go with the left-armer and I’d go with Arshdeep (to replace Bumrah)…We know how good he’s been in T20 cricket and if you think about the skill set, he probably provides a similar skill set to what Bumrah does with new ball and death overs and that’s what India will miss,” Ponting said on the ICC review.
The three-time World Cup winner stated that while Harshit is certainly a talented player, he believes his death-overs bowling skills are not as close to that of Arshdeep’s.
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“That’s taking nothing away from Harshit Rana because I think he has got a lot of talent and we know what he can do with the new ball, but I don’t think his death skills are as good as what Arshdeep Singh’s are…And just that left-arm variation, someone that can bowl left-arm with a new ball and move the new ball.
“We know how important they are and crucial they can be, especially in big tournaments when you’ve got a lot of right-handers at the top. I would personally lean that way if I was India,” he added.
Harshit played all three ODIs against England and picked up six wickets. Arshdeep Singh, on the other hand, played just the third ODI in Ahmedabad, where he collected two wickets. India will begin their Champions Trophy campaign with a Group A match against Bangladesh in Dubai on Thursday. Pakistan and New Zealand are the other teams in the group.
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