Two nights before the start of the Border-Gavaskar Test series in Perth, former Australia captain Ricky Ponting exposed a glaring selection error in the Indian team, which Australia can exploit to claim the trophy for the first time in over a decade.

One of the crucial reasons behind India's win in the last two Border-Gavaskar series in Australia was Cheteshwar Pujara. In the 2018/19 series, he scored 521 runs in seven innings at 74.42 with three centuries and a fifty and in the next tour, he amassed 271 runs in eight innings, laced with three fifties. However, the most outstanding part of his two campaigns was that he faced 1258 balls in 2018/19 and 928 in the 2020/21.

Speaking to Channel 7 Cricket, Ponting felt that India made a mistake by not picking Pujara for the series, who could bat for long hours and leave the Australia attack tired.

“I think Pujara was a big part of their success in Australia in the past, yes he made runs but he batted for long, long periods of time and really took it out of the Australian bowling attack,” he said. “When you’re continually bringing those guys back for the second, third, fourth spell of the day that’s when you can really start putting the pressure on the Australians."

Ponting further pointed out that with Australia not having Cameron Green in the line-up, Pujara would have been the perfect batter against the Aussie attack, who would have been a tad too skeptical in pushing Mitchell Marsh hard for bowling duties.

“With Cam Green not being there, he’s the one who’s picked up the slack in the past couple of years, it’s going to come onto Mitch Marsh and I don’t think they’ll want to push him hard with the ball. So I think India will definitely miss Pujara unless they can find someone to do the same job,” he added.

'Perth Test a must win for Australia'

Australia have not won the Border-Gavaskar Trophy series since the home campaign in 2014/15. Ponting reckoned for Australia to claim the trophy back for the first time in a decade, they ought to win in Perth and make the most of India's vulnerability in the format in the wake of their whitewash at home against New Zealand earlier this month.

“If they were at absolute strength for this first Test match I don’t think India would look anywhere near as vulnerable,” he said.

“Those outs make them vulnerable, they won’t be thinking about what happened against New Zealand, if you think back to the last tour they were bowled out for 36 in the first Test and still took the series.

“Often when they’re under pressure is when they perform at their best [but] those outs make them vulnerable.”

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