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Follow UsEvery time Mohammed Shami takes the ball in his hand in a home Test, there is a sense of inevitability.
You just know that he is a few overs — if not a few balls — away from producing a breakthrough.
And you can always foresee how he’s actually going to provide that breakthrough. Eight out of times, it will be a skiddy delivery coming back in that will result in the undoing of the batter. Either the timber will be disturbed or the batter will be walking back to the pavilion having been struck plumb in front.
There is no mandela effect here. The numbers actually prove this fact: at home, over 60% of Shami’s wickets in red-ball cricket have been either bowled or LBW.
Shami might not have played a home Test this entire year, but this feeling of inevitability he brings to the table has not been missed.
That is all thanks to Akash Deep, who has, in every way, proven to be the former’s spiritual successor with the ball so far.
On his Test debut in Ranchi back in February, it took only 11 balls for Akash Deep to make his best Shami impression. Off a good length, he got one to skid viciously back into Zak Crawley and got the stumps to cartwheel after piercing the gap between the right-hander’s bat and pad.
To his utter dismay and horror, however, the right-armer had overstepped, meaning he’d denied himself his first Test wicket.
A mishap like that had the potential to shatter the confidence of a newcomer, but instead Akash Deep bounced back and showed why he is the real deal, removing the entirety of England’s top three — Crawley, Duckett & Pope — in the space of 10 balls.
And all three dismissals were trademark Shami scalps: Duckett nicked one that came in with the angle and left him, Pope was trapped LBW by a good length delivery that seamed back in sharply and Crawley’s stumps got shattered (for the second time in the innings) by a length delivery that skidded and kept a tad low.
On September 20 (Friday) on the second day of the Chennai Test against Bangladesh, Akash Deep further added to his growing legend by bamboozling Bangladesh with his zippy, incoming deliveries.
Unlike his debut, the 27-year-old did not take the new ball on this occasion. The presence of two senior pacers in Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Siraj meant that it was not until the 7th over that the right-armer got a chance to bowl.
But the delay did not affect the newbie one bit: two deliveries, two absolute pearlers and both Zakir Hasan and Mominul Haque were back in the hut in consecutive deliveries.
It was truly a ‘no Shami, no problem’ moment from Akash Deep. Bowling from ‘round the wicket, he effortlessly shattered the stumps by seaming the ball back into both the left-handers, exploiting the gap between bat and pad — in Shami style.
That being said, with every passing day, Akash Deep is slowly making these skiddy deliveries his own trademark.
As it stands, the 27-year-old has taken 28 first-class wickets in 2024. Among them, nearly 50% (13/28) have been either bowled or LBW.
On the back of his two bowled dismissals on Day 2 of the Chennai Test, 47.45% of Akash Deep’s first-class wickets are now either bowled or LBW.
Part of the reason for this number being really high is the lengths Akash Deep bowls.
The right-armer has so far sent down 149 balls in Test cricket, and a whopping 70.1% have been on a ‘good’ length (6m to 8m mark).
What he basically does is bowl the ball on a length that is neither short nor full and get the ball to deviate off the surface. That coupled with the skid that his action produces ends up bamboozling the batters.
We witnessed this in the unofficial Test series earlier in the year between India A and England Lions, where he picked 11 wickets in the two games he played, at an average of 18.7. Of the 11 dismissals, seven proved to be either bowled or LBW, with the England batters — including the likes of Keaton Jennings & Alex Lees — unable to deal with his skid.
We are now witnessing the same in Test cricket.
It remains to be seen how much of a well-rounded seamer Akash Deep can turn into. His current modus operandi might work in favourable conditions and surfaces at home, but he will need to show a lot more versatility in order to thrive outside India. With the 27-year-old having thus far just played one first-class game outside the country — in South Africa last year, where he went wicketless — it is still largely a mystery how he’ll fare away from home.
But given how quickly this late bloomer has climbed up the ladder — Akash Deep made his first-class debut less than five years ago, at 23 years of age — one reckons that the management will be confident that he’ll learn quickly and transform himself into a useful commodity across conditions.
For now, though, Akash Deep is a lethal weapon at home, and that looks to add to team India’s invincibility in the subcontinent.
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