The Indian team’s bowling performance, on Day three of the second Test match in Brisbane, was nothing but ordinary. In fact, it was a little less than that. There was no noticeable improvement from the show the bowlers had put up in Adelaide.
If anything, things have actually gone down-hill. Whatever happened to the imaginations of our home grown bowlers? Why did they repeat tried and tested tactics, and not try anything new? The Aussie tail-enders had a blast courtesy of the charitable Indian bowlers who put up one of their worst performances so far in the series.
The Aussies, all the way up from Mitchell Johnson to Mitchell Starc, had a ball in the park – pun intended – thanks to the toothless Indian attack. The Indians came off looking like they didn’t know where to bowl, and how to do so. Sadly, even the best Test captain of the world could do precious little to help this Indian attack, or lack of it.
While it’s common to see a lower-order batsman get really comfortable at the crease in the company of a top-order team member batting from the other end, seldom do we see a set of tail-enders enjoy such a partnership while batting, and frustrating the bowlers of the opponents. But that’s how things went down during this Test!
Surprisingly, the Indian pacers in Ishant Sharma and Varun Aaron did have a decent start to their bowling spells when they removed Mitchell Marsh and Brad Haddin early. Thereafter, Australian captain Steve Smith took over from where left off, on day two. He treated the Indian attack with utter disdain and shared a very important seventh wicket stand with Johnson. There was nothing good about the morning session for India.
They probably needed a Shoibh Akhtar, who has one of the best bowling strike-rates against tail-enders. Post lunch, when the Indian took the second new ball, Ishant Sharma bagged two wickets to remove Johnson and Smith in the same over. This was the second high-point for the team before another set to tail-enders rubbed more salt to Indian wounds. There was no respite. Unlike the Indians, the versatile Australian bowlers can also bat like they bowl … really convincingly.
Only the most indulgent Indian fan could have expected a lead of about 100 runs over Australia, in the first innings. But, in reality, it happened the other way around. It appeared as if the Indians allowed the match to drift away to Australia’s advantage, looking quite hapless as this happened. Eventually, the hosts were bowled out for 505.
They took an overall lead of 97 runs. You could sense the relief of R Ashwin, who took the last wickets of the Australian innings, when he looked up to the sky and probably muttered “thank you God”!
The question here is how long will the Indian batsmen keep shielding their bowlers? How long will the Indian bowlers continue to waste opportunities like this? How long will the Indian bowlers continue to make those basic mistakes?
In the second innings when the Indians came into bat — the stage was set, once again, for another fightback from Murali Vijay & Co. The last session had to be for India to keep some interest level intact in the Test match. But Vijay couldn’t repeat the show from the first innings. Now that the Australians would be eying another Test win, someone from the Indian team needs to bat like there’s no tomorrow to salvage the Test match for India.
