Average India Escape Mauling
It was a throwback to an earlier era. India’s attack, with the exception of Mohammad Siraj in his third Test, lacked the control to enforce any plans, restrictive or otherwise. Towards the end of the day, the fast bowlers, again with the exception of Siraj, lost speed. Losing Saini to an injury did not help. And yet, they escaped a mauling thanks in large part to Steve Smith hitting a catch to mid-wicket off the disciplined but limited Washington Sundar and Mathew Wade and Marnus Labuschagne mistiming pull shots when they were well set and getting boundary balls every over.
Whether its because of covid or otherwise, India’s 7th and 8th choice seamers [Ishant, Shami, Bumrah, Umesh, Siraj & Saini being the first six] have turned out to be limited overs specialists who have not played a first class game since January 2020 and December 2019 respectively. Shardul Thakur last took a first class five wicket haul in November 2017, and has only 4 in his last 51 innings since the start of 2016. T Natarajan has bowled in only 33 FC innings all told, and taken 3 five wicket hauls. Washington Sundar has bowled in only 20 FC innings in his life, and last bowled in one in November 2017. He last bowled more than 4 overs in a match in October 2019.
Like all Test cricket of the highest quality, until Brisbane this series has been a contest about offering the batsmen the fewest possible indifferent overs. On Day one of the fourth test, India went entire spells offering nothing but indifferent overs. Given the players available, perhaps it is not surprising that this was so. But this does not change the fact that it was so. And India are unlikely to escape the competitive consequences of it being so.
There is a temptation to pretend as if us knowing that the bowling is weak mitigates contribution of this weak bowling to the scoreline. “We already know the bowling is weak. Why can’t the batsmen make up for it?” is a refrain I’ve heard (and to be fair, I’ve offered when I was in school) repeatedly. It doesn’t work that way.
15 more wickets look very far away for India right now. They must have been tempted to play Mayank Agarwal, Prithvi Shaw, T Natarajan and Kuldeep Yadav - two specialist batsmen and two specialist bowlers - to replace Hanuma Vihari, Ravindra Jadeja, Ravichandran Ashwin and Jasprit Bumrah. But Saini’s injury vindicates their choice of hedging their bets and picking Thakur and Sundar who offer more batting while retaining five bowlers.
This Indian XI is full of compromises. That usually means that with ball in hand, it is likely to be average. And so it proved on Day 1 at the Woolloongabba in Brisbane.