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India did not have their regular captain Rohit Sharma. Three days before the Test, they lost No.3 Shubman Gill to a fractured thumb.
They, anyway, came to Australia without one of their premiere seamers, Mohammed Shami. One could almost hear the murmurs of 4-0 and 5-0. Nobody realistically gave them a chance to compete, let alone win in Australia with a half-depleted side that had no official practice matches Down Under after suffering a historical (read embarrassing) 0-3 whitewash at home against New Zealand.
But.. and that's a big but.
They had Jasprit Bumrah , easily the best all-format bowler of this generation. They had a sprawling youngster in Yashasvi Jaiswal . They had a wounded warrior in Virat Kohli.
And above all, they had the belief that they could gun Australia down in their own backyard for the third time in a row. Leading in Rohit's absence, Bumrah put on a performance for the ages in both innings, backed up by an excellent show by batters Yashasvi Jaiswal (161), Virat Kohli (100*), and KL Rahul (77) in the second innings, as India started the Border-Gavaskar Trophy with a dominating 295-run victory - their biggest in terms of runs on Australian soil - at the Optus Stadium in Perth. India's start was bumpy - right from the choice of their playing XI to the decision to bat first on fresh Perth pitch.
Their batters were rolled over for 150 in the first innings but as India have done so often in Australia, they managed to roar their back, wrestle the initiative and drive home the advantage in another victory that would find a glittering mention in the annals of Indian Test cricket history. There was resistance from who else, but Travis Head (89). Mitchell Marsh (47) and Alex Carey (36), too, frustrated India.
But Bumrah and Siraj provided the goods with three wickets apiece. Needing 7 wickets at the start of Day 4, India bowled Australia out for 238 in a little more than a couple of sessions to take a 1-0 lead in the five-match series and, more importantly, keep their hopes of a third consecutive WTC final alive. Bumrah ends Head's resistance Jasprit Bumrah had a sly smile on his face after seeing the fall fly over Travis Head and Rishabh Pant and race to the boundary.
The five wides did not threaten Head by any means. If anything, it posed a near-impossible challenge to wicketkeeper Pant's reflexes and athleticism. That is if you see the bouncer in isolation.
In Test cricket, you are ill-advised to do that. With Bumrah, you are bound by an invisible law not to do that. Nothing that he does on the cricket field is irrelevant and can be taken out of context.
The previous two deliveries of the same over were fullish and wide; Bumrah was trying to draw the left-hander forward, get him out of his comfort zone and then push him back again. When he did that, he completed the setup with what Sanjay Manjrekar described as “one of the greatest deliveries in modern-day cricket”. The ball angled in to Head, forced him to play at with hard hands and moved away just enough to catch the outside edge.
(more to follow).
