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Follow UsMisreading the conditions, India went in with only two pacers against New Zealand at the Chinnaswamy Stadium. Even after getting bundled out for 46, India had two chances to make a comeback.
The second was when India took the lead in the third innings while being only three down. The third new ball - used after Pant deposited the second new ball somewhere in Cubbon Park - halted India’s second comeback as they lost six for 37 from that point.
The first chance of a comeback came when New Zealand were 233 for seven in their first innings, still away from a safety net of a lead big enough not to face a target of 150+ in the fourth innings. But it was thwarted when India got a taste of their own medicine.
While India’s spinners, batting in the lower-order, have tormented visiting sides during their glorious run in the last decade, the table turned when free of his captaincy duties, Tim Southee put on a 137-run stand with Rachin Ravindra for the eighth wicket. The fact that it came off only 132 balls left Rohit Sharma and India feel like someone stuck in peak Bengaluru traffic with a dinner order waiting outside their doorstep.
Given that Jasprit Bumrah had already bowled a spell in the morning, and with three spinners in the XI, India had to give others the first throw at the dice to break the stand. But Southee and Ravindra played their match-ups to perfection, with the southpaw taking on the left-arm spinners and Southee taking a special liking to Ravichandran Ashwin’s off-spin. In what turned out to be his most expensive figures in a Test innings, Ashwin was taken for 25 off 10 balls by Southee. The other bowler who Southee fancied in that stand was Mohammed Siraj (25 off 19).
Of all the pacers in the Test from both sides, Siraj was the most expensive and the one who averaged the least. In his case, this isn't a one-off while playing in home Tests.
Since Siraj’s debut in late 2020, 30 pacers have bowled in India. No one has played more Tests in India than Siraj (13) in this period, and he has picked the second-most wickets (19) after Bumrah (47). However, on balls per wicket, Siraj stands 13th and further down below (15th) on bowling average.
Among Indian pacers, Siraj’s economy has been similar to that of Mohammed Shami and Akash Deep. But his wicket-taking parameters are only better than the two who are unlikely to ever play for India again (Ishant Sharma and Umesh Yadav) and one who has played only a solitary Test (Mukesh Kumar).
When we look at these numbers in Tests outside Asia, they are not that far off from the core bunch. So, what ails Siraj at home? To understand it, let us look at different parameters.
Parameter 1: Bowling channel
Since his debut in 2018, no other pacer has induced more bowled and lbw dismissals than Jasprit Bumrah. This can be a factor behind him playing more Tests than other world-class pacers in India, where the wickets support such dismissals. He averages two such dismissals per innings in India, which is a higher number than what he does in SENA.
So, targeting wickets is an important parameter for success in India. Here is how the Indian pacers line up on bowling channels in home Tests since 2021.
The percentage of balls hitting the stumps by Siraj is around 3% lower than Bumrah, which isn’t a big difference. These numbers are similar to Shami and Akash Deep. And, he is making the batters leave fewer balls than even Bumrah.
However, even with a similar proportion of balls hitting the stumps, Siraj has had a considerably lower percentage of wickets through bowled and LBW. So it begs the question: what are others doing differently to get the batter to miss the ball in line with the stumps a lot more than Siraj?
Parameter 2: Speed
One of the biggest reasons for others to beat the batters on straight balls more than Siraj can simply be pace. For a while at home, Siraj has bowled only one in three balls at over 135 KMPH. This number has been closer to one in two for the other three successful pacers.
High pace has mattered on flat-ish Indian surfaces. Whenever Siraj has bowled at 135+, he has had a balls per wicket ratio close to Bumrah’s. To right-handers at this pace, Siraj’s average (18.3) and balls per wicket (30.8) are better than every other bowler.
Siraj’s pace has not been an India-only phenomenon. The year in which he bowled the most balls at 135+ was his first year in 2021 (44.29%). Since then, this number has hovered around 30% every year.
It is also worth mentioning that since his debut, no out-and-out bowler has played more games for India than Siraj. While they are of the same age, Siraj has delivered 112 more overs in international matches than Jasprit Bumrah in this period.
For context, between 2013 and 2020, Umesh Yadav and Shami were the two best pacers at home for India. During that period, the duo had an even higher proportion of deliveries at 135+: 69.20% and 75.49%, respectively.
Parameter 3: Length
It will be good to point out right away that Siraj has not done a lot wrong on length. He has had around 60% of balls on a good length, similar to that of Bumrah and Shami. In his short career, Akash Deep has controlled the length superbly, delivering a staggering 73.58% of deliveries in the good length region.
A slight difference between the senior trio has been that while Bumrah and Shami have erred on the fuller side with around 6% more balls in the full region than Siraj, the Hyderabad pacer has fed a similar proportion of more back-of-length balls. And in 20 overs of back-of-a-length balls, he has been pasted for 4.6 runs per over and has had a solitary wicket for a balls per wicket ratio of 120.
Parameter 4: Reverse Swing
Reverse swing at a high pace is a sure-shot recipe for success in the subcontinent. As we already saw earlier, Siraj has not been particularly high on pace. He has not been that effective in the subtle art of reverse swing either.
While Bumrah has played fewer Tests than Siraj at home, he has bowled twice as many reverse-swinging balls as Siraj. Even Shami has bowled more such balls than Siraj despite playing eight fewer Tests.
To bring back the OGs again, both Umesh and Shami had more than 14% balls reverse swinging at home between 2013 and 2020.
While we are on this subject, it should be noted that Akash Deep has hardly shown whether he can reverse the ball.
Parameter 5: LHB-RHB syndrome
Turn the clock back to 2021. With his ability to angle the ball away from left-handers from over the wicket, Siraj was a menace to the southpaws. With an average of 19.1 runs per wicket, no other Indian bowler was more lethal to lefties than Siraj in that year.
The current version of Siraj is a pale shadow of himself, especially while bowling at home, where there is a lack of lateral movement. He averages a painful 71.6 against lefties at home while taking 122.2 balls to get each wicket.
While all other pacers have an improved set of numbers while bowling to the lefties from around the wicket, Siraj has a strike rate in three figures from either side.
Akash Deep watched from the sidelines as two lefties hurt India badly in the first innings. When he has had the ball against LHBs, he has made them play all but a staggering 2.9% of the balls from around the wicket. That is how metronomic he has been.
Along with a lack of pace and inability to reverse swing the ball, Siraj has a left-hander problem. This trio of disorders has put Siraj’s place as a first-choice second pacer in the team in serious jeopardy.
Rohit’s honesty about misreading the pitch was one of a kind, but the batting collapsed twice to the new ball, the bowlers let the tail wag, and the choice of the second pacer was questionable.
But Indian batters have not been tested against this kind of movement at pace in the last ten months. And Ashwin had a rare off-test. So, out of the three things other than misreading the pitch that went wrong for India, only one was controllable: the choice of the second pacer.
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