India have plucked 66 wickets in the ongoing Border-Gavaskar Trophy. Among those, 30 have been taken by one bowler, and that is Jasprit Bumrah. The colossus of the current Indian team has bagged those scalps at an astonishing average of 12.83. None of the other Indian bowlers have averaged less than 30. Mohammed Siraj has fired in fits and starts and is currently the second-best Indian bowler in the series, with 16 wickets at an average of 31.43. Akash Deep, India’s third-highest wicket-taker, has bagged only five wickets so far.
Those numbers basically tell you that India either don’t have the resources or there have been a few tactical errors in relation to selections. In retrospect, it is perhaps a combination of both. India went into the much-awaited Test series with three inexperienced pace bowlers in Deep, Prasidh Krishna and Harshit Rana. Before the Perth Test, Prasidh had played two Tests, Harshit was yet to make his Test debut, while Akash had partaken in five games. With Mohammed Shami not being able to prove his fitness, India had three greenhorns. And it is a bit unfair to expect the pace trio to succeed in alien climes.
Having said that, there seemed to be a few questionable picks considering the prevailing conditions. It has to be observed that India began on the right note by selecting Harshit for the Perth Test. As a tall hit-the-deck pacer, he was suited to the conditions at that stadium and he did a creditable job by taking four wickets. Unfortunately, Harshit was smashed to all parts of the ground in Adelaide.
On the first day, in the final session of that Test, when the pink ball was moving around, Harshit struggled to find the right lines and lengths. The very next day, Travis Head took a heavy toll of his bowling.
The shorter square boundaries in Adelaide didn’t help his cause. Harshit’s lengths are generally on the shorter side. In that context, even if he offers a hint of width, the shorter square boundaries will come into play often. Probably, Akash was a better option for those conditions. The pink ball zips through a little more, and that strengthens the quiver of a skiddy kiss-the-surface bowler like Akash.
At that juncture, India might have pressed the panic button, with Akash replacing Harshit at the Gabba. Logic, though, said that a tall hit-the-deck bowler would end up doing more damage at a venue like the Gabba. If you zoom in on the five venues for the series, Akash’s best hope would have been the pink-ball Test, but he ended up playing at the Gabba and the MCG.
It is true that Akash beat the bat on enough occasions. However, the counter-argument against that would be that Australian batters like Steve Smith, Marnus Labuschagne and Usman Khawaja largely play inside the line and close to the front pad. In those conditions, sometimes, the pace bowler has to force the batting trio into making mistakes. Meanwhile, Akash looks to entice and tempt the batter into making errors. His length is also generally on the shorter side, and he doesn’t possess the wobble ball to sow the seeds of doubt in the minds of the batters.
The selections of Nitish Reddy and Washington Sundar, in order to strengthen the batting line-up, have also come under some scrutiny. Nitish has shown the required attributes to bat in top 6 in the line-up. But the Indian think-tank decided to slot them at 7 and 8 respectively. So, the crux of the question is whether their bowling adds enough teeth to the five-man attack.
For now, Nitish’s bowling is a work in progress. He generates consistent conventional swing, but he will hardly get the opportunity to bowl with the new ball while playing for India. If he develops a wobble ball, it could act as a buffer for him to bowl at just over 80mph with the older ball in England, South Africa, New Zealand and Australia.
Once India took a gamble with Washington and Nitish, the captain should have shown more faith in them. For instance, since the start of the New Zealand series at home, Washington has started to impart a little more overspin. So, from Washington’s perspective, he would likely bowl better with a relatively new Kookaburra ball as he is set to extract more bounce. Giving him one or two-over spells after the completion of the 70th over doesn’t make much sense.
To cut some slack, India are in a transition phase and certain pieces of the bowling puzzle are missing. But after the Perth Test, India seem to have lost their marbles when it comes to picking the right XI.
The post India’s selections pose more questions than answers appeared first on Sports News Portal | Latest Sports Articles | Revsports.
