R Ashwin usually starts his series in Australia with a long and medium back. On his first tour, he snapped at a journalist who asked why. The significance of his words was that you had to be stupid to start ambitious attack fields on such real surfaces.
On his fourth tour, Ashwin has the mid-on when he pitches Steven Smith for the first time. Smith is averaging over 80 against India. He has been out by less than 46 in just two of his 10 first-inning outings against India. The first ball is a loopy, charming detachment, which Smith tracks well and pushes towards the ground. Against old Ashwin and old India, Smith singles to the ground, only his second run in 45 minutes, and lands a strike. Now it doesn’t. The next ball is the same. Another easy single not given.
The next one comes loose like a bud, but is flatter, the seam is more towards the square leg than the thin leg, and is directed towards the similar line around the stump. Ashwin probably hasn’t made sure this doesn’t spin, but he has given the ball every chance not to spin. Smith has not noticed, plays for the outbreak and starts.
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For a brief period at the beginning of Australia’s entries, India seems to have forgotten the lesson they gave Australia on the last tour. After half an hour in which they lost their four remaining wickets overnight for an addition of just 11 races, this looks like a tough time for India.
In the eight overs at the start of Australia’s innings, only one ball would have hit the stumps. It appears that Australia had stolen the winning formula from India. During the last tour, Australia had tried for long hours to tempt India away from home, but Cheteshwar Pujara’s patience and Virat Kohli’s confidence in defense had defeated them. By contrast, India attacked the stumps, bringing 25 pitched terrains or lbw to Australia’s nine. On day one, Australia moved their attack straighter, taking four of those wickets, and in one day doubling the lbw wicket count they took in four Trials in 2018-19.
And here is India, losing its attacking leader Ishant Sharma and not testing the defense of Australia’s starters, one playing for his place on the team and the other hitting above No. 5 for the first time in his Test career. . Australia shot the whole ball 41% of the time with the new ball; India 26%.
Perhaps it is the wariness of the “starters” or the slow pitch with pronounced rebound that Australia has made no move. Because pitching is slow, India can set up straight fields with men trapped in front and allow itself to miss too much. They just haven’t figured it out yet, and they’ve been given a second chance because hardly any runs have been scored against the new ball.
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Jasprit Bumrah may end up as India’s greatest fast bowler of all time. He’s the complete package: rhythm, stitching, swing, stamina. More importantly, he may be the smartest student in the game. On the last tour of Australia, in a year that he toured South Africa, England and Australia, we verified his performance in various periods. He averaged 40.33 and took one wicket for every 80 balls on his first spells. The numbers improved to 24.66 and 57.33 in his second period, 18.54 and 42.27 in the third and 16.11 and 43.22 in the fourth. No other bowler in India exhibited this pattern.
Bumrah is given just the top four first, given time to collect her thoughts, and when she returns there is an automatic anticipation that she will have corrected her lines and lengths. This is perhaps the biggest change in the Indian test team in recent years. Not that the batsmen are cups, but you feel like India has more control over test cricket when they’re on the field. That even with Ishant failing and theoretically off to a normal start on the ball, India can come back at any moment.
And with his seventh ball behind, Bumrah hits. It’s just under a driving length and it’s bending back to hit Matthew Wade’s center stump. On his next trade, he has Joe Burns lbw. Thus, this autonomous madman has been corrected. In the same way, he has left Marnus Labuschagne for Wriddhiman Saha. Then he himself drops Labuschagne. So Prithvi Shaw knocks Labuschagne out of his bowling alley. Bumrah, however, continues to smile. It is the smile of a man who knows that his side is in control when he is on the field. Which will keep creating enough chances in this field.
And there are many possibilities. It’s hard to see where the next race will come from. The field setup is exceptional. India knows that the edges are not transported so they only have a slip and a gully. Instead, they placed a leg ravine, a short square leg, and a short midwicket followed by men on the hook to allow for straight bowling. There are no half volleys outside and the fastballs are difficult to place on this course on a slow pitch. This is the territory of India. You cannot imagine a situation where this India gives in under such conditions and with the possibility of hitting first. The only opening for Australia, Umesh Yadav and his tendency to pitch too straight, has been closed due to this pitch.
The plans are successful. The leg ravine is in the hands of Smith and Labuschagne. The angle around the wicket is choking left-hand hitters. Every time you think a hitter can breathe now by turning the ball against one leg, you see that it has gone to a fielder. The pressure is palpable.
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It is this pressure perhaps that has allowed Ashwin to be more aggressive just as he enters. Smith has faced 25 straight points when facing Ashwin. It is up to him now to turn this pressure into a window, unlike the previous times when he had to do the double job of holding one end and also searching for the windows.
It was only on his last tour of Australia that Ashwin had such a lethal bowling unit to match. Now you may feel the confidence to take advantage of cautious hitters. It is this pressure from the other end that is not often talked about when compared unfavorably with Nathan Lyon’s hard shots that extract an extra rebound in Australia. Lyon is a great bowler, the only survivor in a country who is going to die, but he is a different bowler than Ashwin. They are both artists; Lyon is more in your face, Ashwin more subtle.
Right now, Ashwin is as much fun to watch as Lyon was on the first day. There is drift, there is dip, there are variations in the side effect. Travis Head thinks he can turn one on the leg side, but has been fooled by drifting. The ball throws and spins to launch back for easy catch. Cameron Green has thrown a short ball directly to a fielder, but that doesn’t show the pressure created by the number of times Green has tried to push forward and found the ball close to his reach.
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The fifth gate. The moment you can hold the ball up high. That single exclamation point. How can he be a great player if he doesn’t have a five for in four of the eight countries he has played test cricket in: England, South Africa, New Zealand and Australia? This is the misunderstanding about Ashwin’s record. It’s too nuanced a question to attempt to answer here, but Ashwin is one step away from finally getting his first when he’s pitching No. 11 Josh Hazlewood. Something to show fans of surface statistics.
However, Hazlewood’s two big hits come out and, given the racing premium in this test, Kohli doesn’t want to risk a counter attack against a spinner. It’s a move that works as Hazlewood is out of Ashwin’s replacement first ball. Ashwin ends up with four, but you can see that he doesn’t care about these numbers anymore. He is freer when he plays. During the pandemic, you have reassessed your life priorities. He is now looking to simply enjoy his cricket, grateful as he is for the opportunity to do so when so many others are struggling to get on with their lives.
At the press conference, he smiles more than clicks. However, at one point, the fiery old self reappears when he asks critics why they are asking only him to bowl like Lyon and not hitters to play like Smith. He goes on to say that he respects Lyon’s ability, he enjoys watching it, but he can’t be Lyon as much as Lyon can’t be Ashwin.
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India has a valuable lead of 53, the first time Australia has lagged behind in a day-night event. Two men who could end up being India’s all-time best at their craft have put India in pole position to win an event that former Australian players used to accuse them of avoiding for fear of losing. The beauty of this outfit is that another day it could have been Mohammed Shami doing it. Or Ishant if he was playing.
At a time when it’s nearly impossible to dominate test cricket like Graeme Smith’s South Africa did, Australia and the West Indies before them is too high a bar, that alone can be the hallmark of the world’s best test side. . That in all the conditions of the world, if you give them a blow, they attack you. It may be a release here, a slightly favorable release there, but you can’t afford to provide that opening on this side. In full force, India is that team right now.
Sidharth Monga is assistant editor at ESPNcricinfo
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