Mohammed Shami, Jasprit Bumrah give India what they need on livelier pitch
If India can score another 80 runs, Bumrah and Shami may have just enough to bowl with
Karthik Krishnaswamy in Christchurch01-Mar-20201:31
In our team culture, we don’t look at blaming anyone – Bumrah
It isn’t often that Ravindra Jadeja prowls the fine-leg boundary, but that’s where he was when BJ Watling came to the crease. Was he there to ensure that the fleetest pair of feet on the ground was in position to get under the swirling, top-edged hook?There was a fielder at leg gully too, as Watling took strike to Jasprit Bumrah.The field was set for the bouncer, but Bumrah wasn’t bowling any. Instead, he kept bowling good-length balls angling into the stumps.Watling isn’t the sort of player who takes a big front-foot stride towards the ball. He can get stuck on the crease, sometimes, and he was getting stuck on the crease now, with Bumrah’s field possibly putting the thought of the bouncer in his head.There were two lbw appeals in successive overs, just before lunch, off big, booming induckers. Then, after lunch, came the sucker ball. The field was the same, but Jadeja had by now moved to point. It probably wasn’t designed to work out as perfectly as it did, but Watling failed to get his front foot moving quickly enough, or far enough, to drive the full tempter outside off stump, and he ended up slicing the ball squarer than intended, in the air, and Jadeja flew to his left to complete the catch.It’s no surprise to anyone that Bumrah can set up a dismissal, but if he was trying to bowl to these sorts of plans last week in Wellington, he hadn’t quite been able to execute them, failing to achieve the requisite level of precision with his lines and lengths.Bumrah was a different bowler on Sunday at the Hagley Oval. This was more like the Bumrah we had gotten used to, and almost taken for granted, in the months before his stress fracture.Getty Images
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You know Mohammed Shami is bowling well when his follow-through extends almost all the way to the batsman, curves outwards right at the end, towards the slips, and finishes with a hands-on-head skip.The Hagley Oval saw this sight all morning and all afternoon on Sunday, particularly either side of lunch, when Shami bowled an unbroken 12-over spell, during which he never seemed to drop in pace or intensity. The last ball of the spell clocked 144.7kph.Shami had probably bowled with as much intensity in Wellington too, but the pitch there was on the sluggish side, offering bounce but not too much pace. Taller, hit-the-deck bowlers and swing bowlers could still prosper on that surface, but it wasn’t quite the pitch for his seam and skid. Rather than retreat to a holding strategy, Shami kept looking for ways to beat batsmen with attacking lines, and compromised on his control.This pitch was significantly quicker, and Shami’s natural length and line were made for it. As he usually does, he kept landing the seam perfectly, and the ball jagged this way and that, and occasionally swerved prodigiously after passing the batsman, causing Rishabh Pant all kinds of problems behind the stumps.Not needing to search too hard to find his ideal length, Shami was on the money right from the start, more or less. Like Bumrah, he was able to vary his lengths with precision. When Tom Latham began leaving him on length, for instance, he almost lulled him into a false sense of security by grouping a series of deliveries around a spot just short of a good length, outside off stump, before producing the fatal, fuller indipper that Latham failed to pick up.
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When the day began, India needed Bumrah and Shami to be at their very best. They had been bowled out for 242, and New Zealand were 63 for no loss. They were missing Ishant Sharma, their banker, and his replacement, Umesh Yadav, was a bit of an unknown quantity in overseas conditions, having played just two away Tests before this since the start of 2018. They had no fourth seamer, and their spinner, Jadeja, wasn’t expected to bowl too many overs. They were 1-0 down in the series.Finding an ally in a quick, seaming pitch that quickened up even more on day two, Bumrah and Shami gave India exactly what they needed. With a little more luck against the lower order, they could have secured a bigger lead too. Instead, from 153 for 7, New Zealand recovered to 235 all out. By stumps, India’s position had eroded even further, with the loss of six second-innings wickets with just 90 on the board.But India are still in the game, with two recognised batsmen at the crease and another still to follow. Apart from the grass, which is still mostly green and alive, there are also indentations on the surface, caused by the ball’s impact on day one, when the pitch was softer and moister; these have since hardened, and could cause uneven bounce to come into play as well. If India can cobble together another 80 runs on Monday, Bumrah and Shami may have just enough to bowl with.