Key Points

Rabada added his name amongst the greats on the Lord's Honours Board and also went past legendary Allan Donald's Test wicket tally for South Africa in a scintillating five-wicket haul at Lord's.

Ponting was impressed with Rabada's perrformance, with with the right-armer having produced a similar performance on his last visit to the venue during South Africa's Test against England in 2022.

Ponting compared Rabada's latest exploits to what former teammate Glenn McGrath also managed throughout his career at the famous ground.

"Glenn McGrath was also exactly the same at Lord's," Ponting said as quoted by ICC.

"McGrath loved bowling at Lord's and loved being able to use the slope both ways from either end of the ground, which is something that is probably not talked about as much as it should be."

"These big games are all about your big name players. Your star players have to stand up in these games," he added.

In three matches at Lord's Rabada has taken 18 wickets at an average of 16.83, with two five-wicket hauls, the most by a South Africa.

On the other hand, McGrath took 26 wickets in three matches, at an average of 11.50, with the best figures of 8/38.

Ponting, speaking on Rabada's recent off-the-field struggles with drugs, said, "Having been through a bit of off-field stuff in the last few months as well, I am sure that now that he is back out on the international stage, would have wanted to stand up and be the man for his team and lead from the front. And that's what quality leaders do."

And while Ponting knows Australia's batting group will be disappointed to have not reached any great heights on the opening day of the one-off Test, he offered them a piece of advice for the remainder of the contest.

"The important thing for the Aussie batters is that they now know that they are probably going to get the best of the batting conditions in their second innings, so they have to make the most of those," Ponting added.

Coming to the match, after Australia was put to bat first by SA, they sunk to 67/4 at the end of the first session. A 79-run stand between Steve Smith (66 in 112 balls, with 10 fours) and Beau Webster (72 in 92 balls, with 11 fours) and Webster's 46-run stand with Alex Carey (23 in 31 balls, with four boundaries) pushed Australia near to 200-run mark. But Kagiso Rabada (5/51) and Marco Jansen (3/49) continued applying pressure, reducing the Aussies to 212.

SA had an even nightmarish start, losing their four wickets for 43 runs at the end of day's play, with none of their batters touching 20-run mark. Mitchell Starc got two wickets, while skipper Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood got one wicket each. SA trails by 169 runs.

- ANI