Subtract Jasprit Bumrah from India’s squad in the ongoing Border Gavaskar Trophy (BGT) and re-run play from Perth, Adelaide and Brisbane. Australia could easily have been 2-0 up, requiring just a win in the remaining three Tests to reclaim the BGT and virtually shut the door of the World Test Championship final on India.
More than the 17 wickets Bumrah has taken so far at a staggering average of 12.18, it’s the timing of those wickets that earned India a victory in Perth and helped them claw back a little on Sunday in the third Test at Brisbane.
Daniel Vettori bowls to India players in the nets at The Gabba
Let’s take a look at some of those situations, where, but for Bumrah, India would have been left chasing the game.
1st Test: India bowled out for 150
The Australian pace trio of Josh Hazlewood, Mitchell Starc and Pat Cummins blew India away on the first morning in Perth, giving Australian batters a chance to take control of the match. But Bumrah, the man Australian batters were wary of even before the start of the series, dismantled the hosts for just 104 with his unplayable spell of 5 for 30 to lead a dramatic collapse.
His wickets included three of Australia’s top-four batters inside the seventh over of the innings, which allowed debutant Harshit Rana (3 for 48) to settle and Mohammed Siraj (2 for 20) to bowl to batters under pressure.
Bumrah’s spell gave the Indian batters another chance to come back, which they did with centuries from Yashasvi Jaiswal (161) and Virat Kohli (100*) after a 201-run opening stand between Jaiswal and KL Rahul (77).
Setting the Aussies a mammoth total to chase, Bumrah, who stood-in as captain for the match, produced another three wickets in the second innings to end up with a match-haul of eight wickets and the ‘Player of the Match’ award.
Clearly, if it wasn’t for Bumrah’s brilliance, the script of the match could have taken a different turn.
2nd Test: India dismissed for 180
India’s first-innings batting effort once again fell short of expectations in the pink-ball Test at the Adelaide Oval, as Mitchell Starc spelled doom with his six-wicket effort.
Bumrah once again struck early to remove Usman Khawaja and ended up taking four wickets (4 for 61). But the magnitude of his role and importance in this Indian attack got highlighted on two occasions during Australia’s first innings.
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When Bumrah didn’t bowl much in the last session under lights on day one and the Aussies smartly decided to see him off without taking any risks, Siraj and Harshit couldn’t test Marnus Labuschagne and Nathan McSweeney (39). It allowed them to stitch a partnership and take Australia to stumps without any more damage.
They added 67 runs for the second wicket, and the time spent on the crease helped a struggling Labuschagne find some runs. He scored 64.
A similar scenario unfolded on day two, probably also because of a mistake from captain Rohit Sharma, when he didn’t bowl his premier pacer enough to Travis Head while he was new to the crease. Once again, the other Indian pacers didn’t look potent enough with Bumrah not there to apply pressure from the opposite end. It allowed Head to play his natural counter-attacking game and score a magnificent 140 off 141 balls, which took Australia to 337.
India’s batting unit couldn’t do what they did in the second innings at Perth and once again came up with a shoddy effort to be dismissed for 175, as skipper Pat Cummins led the bowling attack this time with figures of 5 for 57. It left Australia with just 19 runs required to win, and they won by 10 wickets to level the series at 1-1.
3rd Test: Another Bumrah five-for helps India claw back
After just 13.5 overs were possible on the rain-hit first day at the Gabba in Brisbane, Bumrah returned to his best on the second morning by once again dismissing the Australian openers to make it 38 for 2. Nitish Kumar Reddy soon followed it up with the wicket of Labuschagne as the scoreboard read 75 for 3.
But from thereon, Head and Smith scored centuries and put on a mammoth 241-run stand to put Australia in a position from where they could bat the Indians out of the game. But it was Bumrah again who did his magic with the second new ball to take another three wickets, including that of Head (152) and Smith (101), as the home team slipped to 405 for 7 at stumps from 316 for 3 at one stage.
India can bank on Bumrah to take the remaining three wickets as well on the third morning, but all the above scenarios reflect that if it wasn’t for India’s vice-captain and arguably the best fast bowler of his generation, the visitors would have been on the mat by now.
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