Jasprit Bumrah is pure class. Of the kind that transcends surfaces and conditions by his sheer talent. (More Cricket News)
And he does it all with an impish smile of huge enjoyment, that in no way gloats over the discomfort of the batter whose stumps he’s just scattered all over the place with yet another devastating yorker, or induced the outside edge with an angling in-dipper that moved away after pitching. Or the one that thudded viciously into their pads, jagging back in at pace.
He turned around the England first innings in the blink of an eye, with some of the finest deliveries ever seen in Test cricket from a fast bowler in India, where the others sometimes struggle to get the ball to the keeper. Even in these conditions, he can look unplayable, making the ball talk, leaving some of the best batters of the world walk away from the crease, shaking their heads in despair.
M/s Root, Pope, Bairstow and Stokes were first-hand witnesses to that magic which produced six for 45 and scuttled the England first innings in one of the finest spells of fast bowling in the country. And an equally fine spell in the second innings that sealed the match for India, on a pitch that was supposed to primarily favour spinners and England were playing just one fast bowler.
The ageless Jimmy Anderson, on 695 Test wickets, the other magician with the ball, also had his say with the new ball in both innings, not allowing India to get too far ahead, even on the third morning, moving the ball off the seam at will. And as always, he was miserly with the runs that he gave away. The young, inexperienced England spinners on the other hand, would do well to take a leaf out of his book, and were far too inconsistent, bowling too many loose balls.
On the fourth morning, just when England looked like settling down, ominously for India, into a long run chase, they lost two wickets on the stroke of lunch that broke the back of that effort. First, Kuldeep Yadav produced a quick one on the leg stump that held its line and thudded into Zak Crawley’s pads, then cruising along merrily in his 70s, for the second time in the match.
India almost didn’t take the review thinking it was missing leg stump.
And then came the Bumrah magic again as he landed a ball on the cracks outside off stump and brought it back sharply into Jonny Bairstow’s pads, catching him plumb in front, stranded in no man’s land.
What England needed today and missed sorely, was the solidity and calmness of a Joe Root innings, batting through the day, holding things together in one of the displays that have brought him 11,000-plus Test runs, and in the process, taking them closer to the massive fourth innings target of 399. But sadly for England, that was not to be as he seemed to sacrifice himself at the altar of Bazball, throwing his wicket away needlessly, trying to push the scoreboard along.
And on the other side of lunch, just when things seemed to be settling down for England with the seventh-wicket pair of Stokes and Foakes putting their heads down, Ben Stokes was caught on the wrong side of an unnecessary, match-changing run out, reminiscent of the one he himself had engineered at Hyderabad to get rid of Ravindra Jadeja. This time it was Shreyas Iyer who picked up the ball and hit the stumps directly at the striker’s end in one smooth, brilliant action.
England looked dead and buried at that stage, but in came Tom Hartley at No.9 and put on a brisk 55 runs in quick time to pull things back again, contributing 30 of those runs, surviving a close call for a catch off Ashwin on 499 Test wickets, in the process. With England needing 130 to win at that stage, this was a crucial moment. If the pair of Foakes and Hartley had brought the target down to below 100, the pressure would have been back on India, quickening a few heartbeats in the Indian camp.
Jasprit Bumrah seemed to be the obvious choice at this point to make things happen yet again for India. And as the skipper tossed the ball to him, the very first ball was on target, catching Ben Foakes’ outside nick past the slips for an unlucky four runs. With 124 required, the Test match seemed to be building up to a climax once again with Hartley preferring to hit his way out of pressure and Foakes looking solid and sensible at the other end.
But Bumrah was always going to change things. And he did so almost immediately, as he bowled an unexpected slower ball and Foakes, taken by surprise, hit it straight back to him as the speedster caught it gleefully on his follow-through and threw it up.
He had got the breakthrough again for India, for the umpteenth time.
And it was all over bar the shouting as Bashir walked in to bat with only Jimmy Anderson with his pads on in the dressing room. And a game that had looked like going much closer, suddenly came to a tame end, as India closed out the proceedings and levelled the series, with Bumrah bringing back one in to the left-handed Hartley, and knocking his off stump over.
ALSO READ: What Rohit Said After Win
It was a ball that was just too good for the England No. 9, who made a valiant 36.
For Bumrah, it was his ninth wicket of the match on a docile track where the spinners were expected to dominate. But there was such a gulf of quality between him and the other bowlers on display.
In the end, England did well to get to nearly 300 runs in the fourth innings of a Test match in India, but in the inherent urgency of their strategy of dominating the bowlers by scoring quick runs, lost crucial wickets they may have saved with a more conservative approach to batting on what was still a placid fourth-day Indian wicket with the occasional ball keeping low.
And in doing so, missed out on the one big knock from one of their premier batters, that may have got them over the line.
After all, they were just about a 100 runs short of their target in the end.
For India, the batting looked a bit of a worry in this Test match, with the young double centurion Yashasvi Jaiswal, who made his name as a white-ball player initially, scoring 53% of the total runs in the first innings. Such was his dominance that he got to his double century with a six and a four in succession.
And in the second innings, it was another youngster, Shubman Gill’s turn to score a brilliant hundred after some initial hiccups, which accounted for 50% of the team runs. His straight driving, particularly, was a joy to watch. He was coming off a run drought that had put his Test place in doubt, especially with Virat Kohli due to return to the middle order, and that made this innings truly special.
But a single batter accounting for more than half the team’s total runs is an uncomfortable statistic because it implies that the rest of the batting put together did not contribute proportionately enough. Indeed, in the Indian first innings, the second highest score after the double century was Gill’s 34.
So it’s on to the third Test in Rajkot in a fascinating series and KL Rahul looks almost certain to be back in the Indian middle order if fit, although there is no word on Virat Kohli’s return yet. And Mohammed Siraj would be back too, making the Indian pace attack more potent in what promises to be another great Test match.
One where Ravichandran Ashwin, tantalisingly poised on 499 wickets, will cross over into the ‘500 Test wickets club’.
The views and opinions expressed are those of the author. The author is a veteran Wing Commander of the Indian Air Force, who has played Ranji Trophy for Services.
