Ponting hails 'outstanding' Bollinger

Ricky Ponting has credited his bowlers, and particularly Doug Bollinger, with rescuing Australia in Mohali to level the series 2-2. The Australians appeared to be in trouble when India were 78 for 1 in the 15th over, chasing 251 for victory, but in his fifth ODI Bollinger grabbed three wickets to set up Australia's triumph.

"I thought Bollinger was outstanding," Ponting said after the match. "He came on and his wickets probably brought us back into the game."

Bollinger finished with 3 for 38 from his nine overs and helped restrict the scoring while his fellow left-armer Mitchell Johnson leaked runs. Shane Watson grabbed three wickets in the lower order when India were threatening a late fightback, and combined with two sharp run-outs from Ponting it added up to a strong performance in the field.

"It was good to get a couple of run-outs," Ponting said. "Yuvi and I had a chat in the field and he called me a little bit slow, but I got one back on him tonight. We have worked hard on our fielding and I thought it has been at its best in the whole series tonight.

"It's surely a good win for us, coming up short with the bat, but bowling and fielding very well. Peter Siddle got only five overs in the game which means we thought things out really well. The series is level again, it has been up and down all the way through and no team has been able to grab the momentum."

Ponting said it was disappointing that Australia had failed to make the most of a strong start with the bat - four of their top five scored 40 or more. However, nobody else reached double figures and the innings fell away dramatically, with the final wicket falling for 250 in the 50th over.

"We felt we had missed out on a few runs out there with the bat," he said. "At one stage it looked like we would get close to 300, but we didn't capitalise on the Powerplay. We lost a few wickets leading up to our powerplay again and that's been a bit of a problem for us through the series so far. But the boys bowled exceptionally well tonight."

Australia were also fined for maintaining a slow over-rate during their 24-run victory. They were ruled to be two overs short of their target at the end of the match after time allowances were taken into consideration. Ponting was fined 20% of his match fee while his players received 10 % fines.