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Follow UsIndia’s over-reliance on Jasprit Bumrah, a genuine cause for concern
At the Optus Stadium in Perth, Jasprit Bumrah came, he saw and conquered. He single-handedly blew away Australia’s top-order not once but twice, and that enabled both Mohammed Siraj and Harshit Rana to express themselves and put enormous pressure on the Australian batters.
But, unlike in Perth, Bumrah did not punch a hole through the Aussie top-order in Adelaide, and that seemed to sort of expose the lack of depth in the visitors’ pace battery.
Across the first 54 overs of Australia’s first innings, 33 of which came under lights, Indian seamers bowled 49 overs, in which bowlers not named Bumrah took a grand total of *zero* wickets.
But it was not the lack of wickets that was an issue. Rather, the problem was that India simply weren’t able to build enough pressure when their talisman was off the attack. It was almost evident that Australia’s game plan was to ‘see Bumrah off’ as they knew life would get easier if they could. And it did.
The real issue for the visitors lay in Harshit Rana’s lack of control. The 22-year-old, who impressed in the first innings in Perth, brought good energy under lights (0/18 off 8 overs) but was a complete non-factor on the second day when batting got easier.
On day two, Rana got taken apart, conceding 68 runs off the 8 overs he bowled. And this wasn’t just the Travis Head factor: Rana got hit for three fours in an over by Marnus Labuschagne, too.
Truth be told, the signs were there in the second innings in Perth, where Rana went at 5 an over. But it didn’t prove costly there as the game had already been sealed. Here, though, Australia knew Rana was the weak link and exploited it - and in turn, affected the game - due to having seen off Bumrah.
On the back of this showing, Rana will probably be dropped for Brisbane, but Australia will look to execute the same plan even if, say, Akash Deep or Prasidh Krishna come in. India will have serious issues if the third seamer does not step up.
What do India now do with the whole Rohit-Rahul situation?
KL Rahul was supposed to bat in the middle-order, but he had to be pushed up in Perth due to Rohit Sharma’s unavailability. As it turned out, Rahul ended up doing extraordinarily well in Perth, which helped him retain his spot up top in Adelaide, with Rohit slotting in at No.6.
In an ideal world, India would have liked for both Rohit and Rahul to fire in Adelaide in order to solve all headaches organically.
But both batters failed in their respective positions and so heading into Brisbane, India have a tough decision to make: do they swap the batters’ positions or keep it as it is?
You feel Rahul warrants one more game as an opener due to the work he did in Perth, on top of the fact that he faced 64 balls in the first innings in Adelaide, albeit with a lot of luck. But the decision might completely come down to where the management wants Rohit to bat.
Batting at No.6 was supposed to make Rohit’s life ‘easier’, but he looked like a fish out of water in Adelaide, unsure as to how to go about his innings. He was dismissed LBW for 3 (23) in the first innings and then got bowled by a pearler from Cummins in the second for 6 (15). Based on that evidence, the management might want to push Rohit back up top in order to give him the best chance of succeeding and influencing the game.
But contrarily, if Rohit is unable to deal with the seam movement against a 25-over-old ball, how will he fare any better against the brand new cherry?
Since the start of the Bangladesh series, Rohit averages 13.63 against pace, having been dismissed a whopping eight times. In the spin-dominated New Zealand series, Rohit got dismissed to pace twice as many times as any other batter (4), averaging 17.5.
Given these evident struggles, then, will it be wise in any way to push Rohit back up top?
Seems like one of those ‘lose-lose’ situations for India.
India are not batting long, and it’s turning out to be a real problem
At the Adelaide Oval, Australia faced 525 balls in their first innings - which was 39 more than what India did across both their innings combined.
In conditions that were by no means unplayable, India faced just 486 balls, their lowest in an away match this century in which they lost all 20 wickets. The concern is that ‘not batting time’ has started to become a pattern for India now, irrespective of the conditions.
Since 2000, India have been bowled out in under 40 overs 14 times, with four of those instances coming in 2024.
Even if you discount Cape Town, which was the shortest Test match in history, India have been bowled out under 40 overs thrice since October. If you increase the threshold a bit, India have been bowled out in under 50 overs a staggering six times since October.
As well as Australia bowled in Adelaide, you could argue that India simply didn’t show enough patience and discipline with the bat in both innings.
Labuschagne and Nathan McSweeney put on an exhibition of ‘leaving’ under lights on the first night to set up the innings for the hosts, but when it was India’s turn to do the same, they failed spectacularly. The batters were in a hurry on the second day, evident by them going at 5.3 RPO while losing five wickets. The need of the hour was rather to ensure wickets didn’t fall so that good batting conditions in the morning could be taken advantage of.
So much of India’s success across the last two BGT wins in Australia was down to them batting long and grinding the Aussie seamers down. They did it well in the second innings in Perth when the conditions were docile. But if the visitors are to win the series, they might need to start grinding the opposition in tough batting conditions as well.
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