'Be nice, be disciplined, have no fear' – How Bumrah masterminded India's Perth rout
India displayed a kind of dominance that even full-strength teams rarely do in Australia, and that was largely because their stand-in captain didn’t put a foot wrong
Alagappan Muthu25-Nov-20242:10
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Jasprit Bumrah had just peeled away for a little time on his own. He turned around to look up at the crowd – just off to the side of one of the sight screens. This win – away from home, by a whopping 295 runs, to set up a five-match series that has now taken a whole new dimension – means a lot but it feels a whole lot nicer to share it with the people close to you.”My wife and son were here to watch the match,” Bumrah said. “So I was just gesturing to them that we won the match. It’s very special. He is too young right now, but when he grows up, I have many stories to tell him like when he was young, he was at Perth for an important win, he was there at the T20 World Cup final also. Right now he doesn’t understand all this, but when he grows up, I can tell him that he was in the stands when we won some important matches.”Angad Bumrah is in for a great story in a few years’ time. Four-day wins by India over Australia, on one of their fastest and bounciest pitches, at the start of a tour, with 2/5ths of their bowling attack having never played any Test cricket let alone in one of the toughest places on earth; these are the stuff of legend. Fully grown, battle-hardened men have broken down on tours here. And it seemed that could well be where this team was headed when they were bowled out for 150 at tea on the first day.Related
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It wasn’t quite 36 all out but it felt like a bad place to be right at the start of the tour; it felt like it could keep happening again and again. It felt like it happening again and again. 150 all out came on the back of 46 all out and 156 all out and 121 all out. And those low scores had come at home. This one had come at a place where they’ve had some great successes but they’ve been sporadic successes. The 2018-19 and the 2020-21 series have gone a long way to easing the scars of Ricky Ponting scoring hundreds for fun and Glenn McGrath nicking people off at will. But they’re still there and they’d been ripped open after those five hours of play on Friday.Bumrah, in his second Test as captain – that previous one had resulted in a loss that ended up locking a series 2-2 after India had been 2-1 up on England – looked out at his dressing room and for some reason “everybody was confident that if they backed their own ability, we can also make an impact”.An hour or so later, Australia were 32 for 5. And now this is the defining thread of the series. How are Australia’s batting going to cope with Bumrah? His first spell of this Test match ripped 47 centuries out of the Australian batting line up in the space of two balls, Usman Khawaja and Steven Smith back in the hut. Later on, the match in one picture played out when Australia’s designated No. 3 batter didn’t even take up arms against Bumrah and was out lbw.”Obviously, whenever tough scenarios come, I look at myself that how can I contribute even when I am not the captain. So whenever tough scenarios are there, I look at answers that okay, if I am going to bowl at this moment, what can I do? So in this moment, we were a new side, so I automatically wanted to put me in tough scenarios whenever we needed to do something. I was trying to put myself in that tough scenario to make the job a little bit easier for the new guys coming in.”6:04
Bumrah: ‘Whenever tough scenarios come, I look at how I can contribute’
There is history in Australia of individuals being able to drive whole oppositions up the wall. Just that usually they’re wearing baggy green and don’t India know it. Ponting scored two double-hundreds against them in the space of two weeks. Michael Clarke scored a double and a triple in the same series. Smith went through several tours like Super Star Mario. Completely invincible; he made 17 runs in this Test. His front pad had a target on it and even the debutant Harshit Rana could find it. Then he copped a blow to the solar plexis, ended up scoreless for 12 balls and finally nicked off.This kind of dominance is hard to fathom even when a full-strength team comes here. India were missing Rohit Sharma, Shubman Gill and Mohammed Shami and their absence was barely felt. Yashasvi Jaiswal and KL Rahul stepped up to shepherd India from the top of the order. Rana bowled the ball of the match to get rid of Travis Head. Nitish Kumar Reddy was part of a raucous period of play last evening when India scored 77 runs in just 54 balls. This was a team put together in crisis and it is incredible how well they’ve done.”When they [Rana and Reddy] made their debut, the biggest positive sign was that they were not nervous at all and it didn’t seem like they were playing for the first time in Australia or that it was their first match,” Bumrah said. “They were asking for responsibilities. If I told them the team needs them to do something in a certain situation, they were more than ready. They never said ‘Bhaiya, we won’t be able to do it’. They wanted responsibility. So, it’s positive signs for the team, because all the youngsters coming through, they are very hungry and have a lot of ability. When you have that, you can learn skills. But if you are scared, the fear won’t go. So that was a big positive sign that they don’t have fear and have the desire to learn. They had a very good start and hopefully they will continue to do well.”Jasprit Bumrah celebrates his first Test win as captain•AFP/Getty ImagesBumrah is confident the markers India have laid down in Perth can be taken forward. “I think that going further will help us in good snares because, as I said, this is a tough place to play cricket and you will be put under pressure. When you respond to pressure, that gives you a lot of confidence going further in your career.”His imprint on this win was everywhere, particularly in the way they bowled in the first innings. “The message was we will be nice and disciplined and we will make run making as difficult as we can because that is what has worked in the past over here as well. When we are able to do that, that gives us a lot of success. So that was the message that was passed.”Usually in Perth, there could be a scenario where when we come from India, the bounce is not as prominent as what is here. So you tend to bowl a little short, you can get excited by the bounce and you can’t find the length. It looks good when you bowl a back of length delivery and the batsman gets beaten, but the batsman is still there. So you have to find the right length and as I said, we knew that if you make them play more, there is enough in the wicket to give us assistance.Player-of-the-match Jasprit Bumrah gets applauded by the Perth crowd as he walks off•Associated Press”So we were focusing on our strength. We as a bowling unit do get a lot of dismissals with bowled LB and caught behind. So we realised that you have to stick to your strengths and find the right length over here and we were able to do that.”So it was natural that the question was asked. Would Bumrah go to Rohit, who landed in Perth on Sunday and had his first hit on Monday, and say I’m keeping the captaincy? “I was filling in for him. I still had discussions when he was in India discussing how we are shaping up. But yeah, I am not going to tell him that I am going to lead but I am going to help him in whatever capacity I can.”Bumrah. Never puts a foot wrong. Neither did his India.