Bumrah's cool head, flair for captaincy come to fore in 1st Test win

Congratulations to Jasprit Bumrah and his side for winning the first Test of the ongoing cricket series against Australia in grand style. They played incredible cricket to come back from a 0-3 whitewash at the hands of New Zealand at home. As if this was not enough, the team landed in Australia with hardly any time to even play a practice match.

Australia also ensured that the Test was played on the fastest and bounciest pitch available in the country. To add to their woes, India was without the services of skipper Rohit Sharma and Subuman Gill, one of the few batsmen who showed a semblance of comfort while tackling the Kiwi bowlers. Hence, it was understandable that most observers chose not to give the visitors too high a chance against the hosts in the first Test.

But, despite all these odds being stacked against them, India managed to score a comfortable victory. Many reasons can be ascribed to this win, but the biggest factor that separated the two sides was skipper Bumrah, who must easily be the best fast bowler in the world. One cannot imagine a time when an Indian speedster had instilled so much fear and awe in the minds of opposing betters as Bumrah does.

Suffice it to say that every time Bumrah took the ball in his hand and marked out his run-up, he looked like he was taking a wicket. This looked like a throwback to the salad days of Fred Truman and Jeff Thomson when the very sight of the bowler at the top of the mark with the red cherry in hand was sufficient to psyche out the poor willow wielder at the crease!

When the Indian batters struggled against the Aussie fast bowlers on the first day, it appeared as if the decision to bat first on the wicket after winning the toss was not a wise one. But Bumrah turned the tables on the Aussies with a brilliant bowling spell that demolished their top order by dismissing Nathan McSweeney, Usman Khwaja and Steven Smith before the total touched 20 runs.

They could never recover from this setback and just about managed to cross the three-figure mark in the first innings. After Indian batters, led by Yashasvi Jaiswal, Virat Kohli, and KL Rahul, made merry with the bat in the second outing to set a last innings target that was beyond the impossible for the hosts, it was Bumrah who again provided the initial breakthroughs to place the Aussies on the back foot.

Another aspect of Bumrah that came to the fore during this match was his cool head and flair for captaincy. Since he has not played many matches in the domestic circuit nor led a side in the longer format in the past, apart from a solitary exposure which ended in a defeat in England, not much was known about his skills as a captain. But not only did he not show any signs of stress and worry when he led the side onto the field after having dismissed for 150 in the first innings, but he also displayed an elan and panache that would have made experienced skippers proud.

Bumrah surprised everyone by his astute handling of the team during the match. He made a bold decision to play four fast bowlers and include Washington Sundar, leaving out Ravindra Jadeja and Ravichandran Ashwin. He insisted that the bowlers attack the stumps and showed the way by bowling a wicket-to-wicket line, which resulted in most of the victims being either bowled leg before the wicket or caught behind the wicket.

Besides leading from the front with the ball, his bowling changes invariably came good, which showed his excellent reading of the game. He resisted the temptation to over bowl himself, which usually happens when the captain is also the main strike bowler for the side. His handling of Mohammed Siraj and Harshit Rana was perfect, and they returned with excellent figures, justifying the faith posed on them by the skipper. This performance will also provide some food for thought for the national selectors when they sit down to decide the successor for Rohit Sharma in the not-too-distant future.

It was only fitting that Bumrah was given the Player of the Match award as his contributions to influencing the final result far overshadowed those made by the others. This was “Bumrah’s Test,” and even the brilliant centuries struck by Jaiswal and Kohli and the comfort displayed by Rahul at the crease paled in comparison to the brilliant show of their captain.

This match was also an excellent advertisement for Test cricket, which has been reeling under the onslaught of One Day Internationals (ODIs) and T20 matches. An ODI match does not give many opportunities for a side that slips even once during its course. A couple of bad overs or dropped catches often set a side back from which it is almost impossible for the team to recover. But the dynamics of a Test match allow such comebacks. There are no restrictions on the number of overs a bowler can bowl or field placements.

Further, the batsmen have time to settle down and plan their innings. The sort of turnaround that one saw in the fortunes of a side at Kolkata in 2001, when India came from behind after being forced to follow on, can be witnessed only in test matches. Moreover, the type of sustained excitement for long periods that test cricket offers is not equal.

The performance of the national side and the result in the Perth test should provoke some rethinking amongst the top honchos in the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) regarding the wickets to be prepared when matches are played at home. For many years, BCCI has been guided by “conventional” wisdom that we need to prepare “rank turners” to win series at home. This was done both to give an advantage to our spin bowlers, who invariably ran through opposing sides on such tracks, and to minimise the threat posed by the fast bowlers of the touring teams. This “winning formula”, first developed by Ajit Wadekar during his tenure as coach of the national side during the 1990’s, soon became the accepted wisdom in the cricket establishment in the country. The only change during the last three decades was that the quality of pitches kept deteriorating progressively. This has presently reached a stage where all that a spin bowler has to do is to deliver the ball at the precise line and length to pick up wickets. The success of Mitchell Santner, the Kiwi left-arm spinner, during the last series stands as an example of this fact.

The biggest drawback of this “formula” is that this led to the deterioration of the quality of cricket on offer for the spectators, with the matches invariably getting over in three days, if not before that. The sight of spinners bowling in tandem right from the first hour of the match and the batsmen struggling even for survival at the crease is not a great advertisement for the game and led to a dwindling number of followers coming to the stadium to watch the game.

This did not worry BCCI as they were rolling in money, thanks to the sponsors and the success of IPL. This trend worsened after the World Test Championship (WTC) commenced, prompting BCCI to adopt a “win at all costs” strategy.It finally took the lowly Kiwis to prick the bubble and expose the fallacies of this approach, which they accomplished through a clean “white wash” last month.

It is one of the biggest ironies that despite having the best fast bowler in contemporary cricket in our ranks, BCCI goes all out to prepare pitches that help spinners. It is high time we changed this approach and began making wickets that help good cricket, as is done by Australia and England. The victory at Perth has shown that we possess the skillsets and firepower to defeat any side, irrespective of the pitch and other conditions. This should reassure the decision makers in BCCI and team management that the present side can win matches on any surface in home conditions as well.

It is high time we shed the mindset that only spin bowlers can win matches for the national side in test matches played in India. It ill behoves a nation which is not only the financial powerhouse of the game but also boasts of a champion side in all formats to prepare pitches that are not conducive for playing good quality positive cricket. Most importantly, a change in approach by preparing sporting pitches will also help to bring the spectators back to the stadium to watch Test matches and keep this format alive in the country.

This victory has the potential to change Test cricket in India. One hopes that the BCCI learns from this win and corrects its attitude and approach to test matches in the future.