India vs Australia: Ravichandran Ashwin In Awe Of Jasprit Bumrah, Calls Him 'Malcom M'

Jasprit Bumrah, Team India's star pacer, finished with figures of 3/53, following his six-wicket first innings haul as the visitors thrashed hosts Australia by 137 runs to win the Boxing Day Test at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on Sunday. Impressed by the 25-year-old pacer's third five-wicket haul in Tests and ecstatic by India's emphatic win Ravichandran Ashwin, who missed the Tests in Perth and Melbourne, took to Twitter to congratulate the team and likened Bumrah to the legendary West Indies' bowler Malcolm Marshall. "Not an easy place to come and win and every test win here needs to be cherished like there is no tomorrow. Special mention to @imVkohli @cheteshwar1 and our very own Malcom M @Jaspritbumrah93", Ashwin Tweeted.

Not an easy place to come and win and every test win here needs to be cherished like there is no tomorrow. Special mention to @imVkohli @cheteshwar1 and our very own Malcom M @Jaspritbumrah93 pic.twitter.com/jIB8oJ0eMG

— Ashwin Ravichandran (@ashwinravi99) December 30, 2018

Bumrah waded into the Australian batting lineup with figures of 6/33, the best for an Indian fast bowler Down Under since 1985. These were also the career-best figures for Bumrah in Tests, bettering the 5/54 he claimed against South Africa in Johannesburg in January.

Bumrah also surpassed Dileep Doshi to register most wickets for India in his debut year in Test cricket. In 1979, Dileep Doshi took 40 wickets in his debut Test year, which was a record till Bumrah broke it in 2018.

Interestingly, Bumrah also recorded the best figures for any Indian bowler in Tests at the MCG, surpassing Bhagwath Chandrasekhar's 6/52 in 1977.

Bumrah's effort were also the second-best for an Indian fast bowler in Tests in Australia, behind only Kapil Dev's 8/106 at Adelaide in 1985.

As far as the series is concerned, the win in Melbourne leaves India, the world's top-ranked nation, zeroing in on their first-ever Test series win in Australia with just the Sydney Test to go.

India retained the Border-Gavaskar Trophy and now lead the four-match series 2-1.