Opting for increased batting insurance is placing a greater workload on India’s MVP – and Jasprit Bumrah is still delivering
Alagappan Muthu26-Dec-20242:08
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Boxing Day was going to be hard on the team that had to bowl at the MCG. The heat and lack of moisture was so severe that the Met Department had issued a warning. This is “fire weather,” indicating an increased risk of bush fires if people weren’t careful. It was 38C when Jasprit Bumrah came on for his fourth spell.He has been carrying the Indian attack and not just because the rest have been flat -the team’s selections have also been strange. They picked six bowling options for Melbourne but for the first 50 overs of Australia’s innings they had to turn to the same four over and over again. The two India barely needed – Washington Sundar and Nitish Kumar Reddy – seem to be in the XI as a safety net for a fragile top order.Test cricket brings time into the game. Batters are required to give risk the cold shoulder here. To prise them out – especially in the harsh weather of Melbourne – specialists are needed. The three India had actually did a good job. Bumrah (22), Mohammed Siraj (16) and Akash Deep (14) induced 52 false shots in the first 30 overs (one every three balls). In total there were 55. Ravindra Jadeja contributed the other three at a rate of one every eight balls.The risks Sam Konstas took kept coming off. His livewire half-century forced India into playing catch-up and playing catch-up is not easy when half the bowling attack comprises batting allrounders. That’s the kind of thing that works in limited-overs games because there, batters are obliged to attack and that increases the chance of making a mistake. You don’t always need a specialist to capitalise on that. Sachin Tendulkar has more five-fors than Shane Warne in ODIs.Related
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So at 237 for 2 in the 66th over, with Marnus Labuschagne on 72 and Steven Smith on 42, India were courting trouble. Then came a bit of luck. Or perhaps a change of luck, considering a lot of their good work didn’t yield results earlier in the innings? Either way, after Labuschagne charged Sundar but couldn’t clear mid-off, all eyes turned to one man. The ball was too old to be threatening. The weather too hot to be outside. The team angry and too far behind. But as soon as Bumrah is at the top of his mark, there’s renewed hope.Rohit Sharma went to him because walking into bat was . Travis Head. Taking him down was vital. All batters are vulnerable early. Even those who have single-handedly whisked Tests that were in the balance and thrust them into match-winning territory. Twice in this series. Bumrah started from around the wicket. He snapped his wrist down on the ball. Head could have seen the shine was on the inside, which normally means it would move away from the left-hander. This one didn’t. It came in and took his off bail. In the slips, Rohit leapt into the air with the same joy kids all over the world would have done 24 hours or so earlier. Tis the season for jaffas.That three-over spell from Bumrah produced nearly as many wickets as India were able to take all day. There was an immediate debrief at stumps with Rohit and the entire coaching staff. Assistant coach Abhishek Nayar then arrived for the press conference and said he was happy with the XI India picked, though he sympathised with Shubman Gill who paid the price for his team hedging its bets.Jasprit Bumrah bowled 21 out of 86 overs on a hot day in Melbourne•Associated PressIndia have changed their combination before every match of this tour. The spinner that played in Perth didn’t play in Adelaide and the spinner that played in Adelaide didn’t play in Brisbane. Harshit Rana is back on the bench. KL Rahul has been pushed down the order. R Ashwin, who might have enjoyed this pitch, has retired. Is all this a horses for courses thing, or is it something else? Australia have only budged to accommodate injury or loss of form.”The thought process [in picking the XI] wasn’t so much batting,” Nayar said, “If there was an overemphasis on batting, then we would have had Shubman in the team. We just think of the balance of the team based on the conditions and what’s ahead of us.”It is pretty obvious that we felt in these conditions, looking at the pitch, having Washi in the bowling attack will give us that variation. Especially towards the end once the ball gets old, post the 50 overs, we felt that is an area that we wanted to get better at. We felt Washi could give us that solidity with Jaddu, especially the way Travis Head and Alex Carey were getting runs lower down, so we felt having an offie in the ranks will provide us with that.”India went back with a share of the day’s spoils because Bumrah bowled 21 of the 86 overs. That’s nearly 25%. Only twice has he bowled more in a day. By the end, he needed to slip off the field for short periods, which meant India delayed taking the new ball until he had spent that time back on the field and could bowl again, and was seen requiring the physio’s attention on his left calf.Those visuals along with the scorecard, which shows Reddy bowling only five overs – some of them with the wicketkeeper standing up – and Washington not being needed until the last over before tea, tell the story of this series. India’s efforts to protect their out-of-form top-order by picking bowlers based on their batting ability is putting a lot of stress on their greatest asset.