Ponting: Umpires not looking at no-balls

Aaron Finch survived when a replay showed Ishant Sharma overstepped, which Ricky Ponting says the umpires should be watching more closely.

A replay showed Ishant Sharma overstepping, which Ricky Ponting believes was one of the many deliveries which should have been deemed no-balls but were not signalled.

Ricky Ponting believes the first Test between Australia and India proves umpires are not monitoring for front-foot no-balls.

The issue came into focus on day four in Adelaide after Aaron Finch was given out to Ishant Sharma, only for a review to show the India quick had overstepped.

Former Australia captain Ponting felt a number of Ishant's other deliveries should have been deemed no-balls but were not signalled.

Finch only made 11 before falling to Ravichandran Ashwin and Australia was 104-4 and trailing by 219 runs at stumps.

"I've said this for a lot of years; I honestly don't think the umpires look at the front line anymore," Ponting told cricket.com.au.

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"Some of the ones we've seen … he was 4-6 inches over the line.

"I don't think the umpires are looking and I certainly don't think they were looking at those ones because they were blatantly obvious ones.

"And as we know now, they'll only ever look at them if a wicket falls, which as far as I'm concerned is not right.

"Part of umpiring is to get the no-ball decisions right as well. I'm not asking for everything to be spot on, but if you're six inches over then surely you can call it.

"If I was the fielding team, I'd want to know. If I was Virat Kohli and I knew that my bowler was bowling a no-ball more often than not, I'd want to know that so I could pull that back in line."