ADELAIDE: The manner of India’s capitulation in the second Test has left them facing many questions, but the immediate need is to address the balance of the fast-bowling lineup.
With the frontline batters more or less picking themselves, additional pace reinforcements could be uppermost on India’s mind going into the third Test. If it is a typically fast and furious, seaming Gabba surface, Jasprit Bumrah will cover up for some of the others. But what if the surface is flatter? Will it be another case of the team being too reliant on Bumrah, like in Adelaide? Will India then need a stronger third, or even fourth seamer?
The question would have been playing on the minds of captain Rohit Sharma and coach Gautam Gambhir when the team returned to the site of the carnage, the Adelaide Oval, for a morning nets session here on Tuesday. This time, the red Kookaburra replaced the pink ball, a move likely to have been a welcome relief for many of the batters.
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Some all-too-familiar scenes played out.
Rohit Sharma looked scratchy. Virat Kohli continued to work on his backfoot play. Shubman Gill and Yashasvi Jaiswal put in the hard yards. Bumrah and Mohammed Siraj, while present, chose to indulge in some ‘workload management’ and put in time at the gym instead. And Akash Deep continued to trouble all the top batters.
Since preparations began for the second Test, Akash Deep has looked the most penetrative of the second rung of pacers during training, drawing praise from the likes of Kohli at the nets. Harshit Rana‘s explosive Perth debut, of course, ensured he would walk into the XI in Adelaide. Disappointingly, Rana was largely listless in the pink-ball Test. Without regular inroads from Bumrah and Siraj, the pressure and inexperience showed.
Rana’s lengths and pace were off. He was often easy pickings for the likes of Travis Head and to a lesser extent, Marnus Labuschagne. Mohammed Shami, remember, is not around yet.
If the team persists with a specialist spinner in Ravichandran Ashwin or even Washington Sundar, how can they fit Akash Deep in without taking away some of the side’s batting depth? There’s also Prasidh Krishna, who wheeled away at the nets on Tuesday, waiting in the wings.
One way would be to swap Rana for Akash Deep, but it’s not an easy choice to make. The team has backed Rana and it would be unfair to dump him after just his second Test. Rana was more impressive in the warm-up game against the PM XI as well, taking 4/44 from 6 overs, and in Perth he got rid of the dangerous Head and toppled the tail in the first innings.
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Akash Deep has more first-class experience but is a largely unknown quantity on foreign soil, having played only the India A-South Africa A game in Benoni a year earlier and come away wicketless. Rohit suggested as much after the Adelaide defeat, saying, “That option is always there (swapping Rana for Akash Deep). All the bowlers who are here are capable of walking into the side. But how could I drop Rana when he had done nothing wrong in his debut Test? He gave crucial breakthroughs.”
If India do decide they need four frontline pacers at the Gabba, that would mean including both Rana and Deep. In that scenario, can they drop their lone spinner and go with an all-pace lineup? That too is a difficult decision to make, since apart from depriving the attack of variation it might also take away from the notional batting depth, given that both Ashwin or Sundar are credible batters in their own right. The exclusion of the lone spinner could hurt India in case of another top and middle-order collapse.
The other option is scarier still, if India can stop obsessing over a seam-bowling allrounder. Latest sensation Nitish Kumar Reddy has made a stellar impact with the bat, his lower-order cameos adding crucial runs to the board in quick time. However, he has not been as penetrative as a fourth seamer as, say, Shardul Thakur was. He may not even be the fourth seamer the team needs in Brisbane.
In Perth, Reddy contributed a crucial 41 as India folded for 150 in their first innings, but was required for only three overs when Australia batted, more to give the likes of Bumrah, Siraj and Rana a break. In the second innings too, he bowled only a notional four overs, though he got the wicket of Mitchell Marsh.
In Adelaide, Rohit needed the services of a proper fourth seamer in Australia’s first innings, but Reddy bowled only six overs, though he did get Marnus Labuschagne out before being taken off. Marsh plays a similar fill-in role for the Aussies as fourth seamer, but it can be argued their main three pacers are far, far more penetrative and they are not over-reliant on just one bowler.
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What can turn out to be important for the team is the 163 runs Nitish has scored on this tour at 54.33 and a strike rate of 87.16. Most of his cameos have come with India in deep, deep trouble. With some veteran batters struggling for form, Nitish’s presence with the bat is crucial. The 14 overs he has bowled for two wickets at a strike rate of 42 is incidental.
Given the fragility of the batting, there are no easy choices for India to make when it comes to settling on their pace lineup for Brisbane. Only one thing is clear — without runs from the top and middle order, no amount of tinkering with the bowling lineup will be of any help.
