India’s bowling displays perfect symphony in unison as 5 out of the 6 were amongst the wickets with miserly economies.
The day India’s bowling rose in unison.
Although it has taken a while, the wait has been worthwhile. For some time now, India has been going through a bowling shift. They have won Test matches on the basis of individual efforts—consider Mohammed Siraj and Akash Deep sharing 16 wickets in Birmingham or Jasprit Bumrah in Perth—but they haven’t been able to muster this kind of incredible, all-consuming, irresistible wave after wave of attack in recent years. Perhaps the final one occurred at Rajkot in February 2024 when R Ashwin took a plane home in the middle of the Test to be with his ailing mother, and the rest of the team stepped up to knock England out for 319 on a flat surface.
But this was something different. The captain’s actions on the pitch, the bowlers’ execution, and the pre-match strategies all combined to cram England into a position where they had no room to breathe. Even when they formed alliances, a collapse was always a possibility.
Five of the six bowlers who bowled took at least one wicket. In his eight overs, Ravindra Jadeja, the only player without, went at 2.50 per over. India last deployed six bowlers in an innings against Sri Lanka in Kanpur in 2009, when each bowler either took a wicket or went for less than three runs per over.
Additionally, India required all six because to their unforced batting blunders and mediocre luck throughout the series. In addition to having a lucky break and taking a non-traditional wicket with a pull to mid-on, Siraj and Shubman Gill were also given a DRS review shortly after making a mistake. In a trying session after lunch, he got nine false strokes from Joe Root in 23 balls, but he was unsuccessful.
India intended to capitalise on a Zak Crawley oddity, thus they went to Nitish Kumar Reddy before Akash Deep after Bumrah and Siraj’s intensity in the morning.
He averages 26 against slower bowled balls and 44 against faster ones (135 kph or more) when using the new ball, which is up to 30 overs old. India used military medium pace to get him out for the second time this week after attempting to do it traditionally and failing due to Crawley’s extreme luck, which had a dismal 62% control rate. After trapping him to the crease with the keeper up, Reddy fulfilled his promise to stay on a length.
The older, softer ball, which has been a problem for both teams this series, was the next obstacle. The ball reached 37 overs in that wicketless one-hour after lunch, well past the point at which it becomes soft and bats easily.
Jadeja and Washington Sundar began bowling from ends where the hill prevented them from making their natural turn. Washington, who has drifted the ball twice as much as any other spinner in this series, continued to do the batsmen in on the bad edge, and Jadeja bowled no loose deliveries. Balls that did not turn as much as anticipated bowled Washington’s four victims. Due to the drift, at least two of those batters were also playing too far inside the line.
India had discovered the last piece of the puzzle by combining drift, the slope, and now-dry pitch. Now, the bowling was being tested spell after spell. When Gill put a fielder out to stop Harry Brook’s ramp, he was bowled right away by Akash Deep, a quick bowler. Gill was out bowled right away, slog-sweeping to Washington after putting a short fine and sending the fine leg to deep square for the hard Ben Stokes sweep.
Bumrah returned to take two more wickets with absolute perfection after bowling four of his five first-inning victims, including a yorker and one that sailed in to hit the top of off. This Test had a total of 12 bowled dismissals for India. It has been seventy years since a team had twelve or more bowled.
There has been every indication that India will have to win this series the hard way, if you believe in signs. It was impressive to see the bowling unit demonstrate that they were ready to face challenges head-on.
However, Karun Nair’s apparent failure to pick the ball and shoulder arms to a straight delivery—the kind of poor decision that is uncommon among Test batters—caused India to lose four wickets to 21 incorrect shots. The same bowler, Brydon Carse, bowled from the same end and even Gill, who has been relaxed throughout the series, was late on really full balls.
Carse bowled 61% of the balls in that spell fuller than the six-meter mark, so if England took advantage of this and exploited it, it shows excellent situational awareness and game feel. In any case, India’s hitters will now have to learn the hard way.