It was a day made in Test cricket heaven. Australian skipper Steve Smith won the toss and elected to bat on a turner – the pitch was dry. Dry enough to start crumbling within a few overs of the first ball being bowled. Dry enough for India skipper Virat Kohli to give Ravichandran Ashwin the new ball. Dry enough to have spin from both ends by the ninth over.
But then things sort of deviated from the script a little. For much of the first session, Australia fought – in fact, they seemed to be in control of their destiny. Warner was circumspect, Renshaw resolute. Between them, the Indian bowlers were kept at bay.
After six overs, Australia had only 15 runs on board. After 15, they had 40. After 27, they had 80. Get the drift: the run-rate was increasing at a steady rate as the Aussies started taking control. Then, Kohli – at long last – turned to Umesh Yadav.
In the last 10 overs before Yadav was finally brought into the attack, the Aussies had scored 40 runs at four runs per over. They were over the early morning jitters and India needed to shake things up.
Yadav did exactly that. His first ball was a no-ball, the second was good length, the third was full and fast. The pace was too much for Warner, who had played the ball as late as possible all morning – he played on and India had their first breakthrough.
Did Kohli have to wait that long to get in Yadav, who had looked really good against Bangladesh in India’s last Test before the Australia series, is a question many were asking but for now, it had worked.
India had their breakthrough and Yadav was pulled out of the attack after just two overs (2-1-1-1).
But then he was got back into the attack immediately after lunch. By the 40th over, he started getting the ball to reverse consistently. It was a far cry from the Yadav of old – the one who would consistently bowl poor balls and let the batsmen off the hook.
Maturing fast
Dhoni’s favourite quip when Yadav bowled was symptomatic of what was wrong, “Zara ek line pakadke ball daal! (Bowl in just one line!).” You heard it time and again, again and again. It made you wonder if any of it was getting through to him at all.
But today he kept the pressure on Australia. He showed that he was learning. Indeed, Dhoni would have been pleased.
As he said after the day’s play, “My hard work over the last six months is bearing fruit now. This is what I worked on with Sanjay bhai [Bangar] and Anil bhai [Kumble]. In India, on such pitches, you bowl in the same area and let the batsman make a mistake. You cannot bowl poor balls and that is what I tried to do.”
To see Yadav mature into a bowler who thinks about how he wants to get batsmen out is immense for this Indian team. For the longest time, the only Indian fast bowler who seemed capable of doing this was Zaheer Khan and if Yadav can keep this up, India’s chance of winning Tests – not just at home but also abroad – will increase.
Another sign of his maturity was how he also let the pitch do its job. Yadav realised that even though the pitch was favouring the spinners, there still was something in there for the pacemen. So he stuck to his line and length and reaped the rewards. It would have been easy to try something different, but he stuck to his guns, he remained patient and that is what made the difference.
Control, not pace, was the calling card in Dhoni’s India. A young Yadav had struggled to fulfill all of his former captain’s wishes. But under Kohli, the fast bowler from Vidharbha also seems to have come out of his shell, he seems more sure about what he wants to do. While Dhoni had immense confidence in his ability to judge players, Kohli seems to be better at being able to inspire them to play their best. The change is clearly working for Yadav and India isn’t complaining.
Yadav ended the day with figures of 12-3-32-4. He owed one of those wickets to a superlative diving catch from Wriddhiman Saha, but Kohli used the Vidharbha paceman as an impact bowler and Yadav did what his captain demanded. Indeed, on a raging turner, India found success using pace.
Mitchell Starc’s 57 off 58 balls got Australia (256/9 at close of play) back into the match but Yadav’s wickets ensured that despite the late cameo, the game remains a close one. The second innings – with the pitch expected to have some uneven bounce – will need Yadav to produce more of the same. Given what we saw today, he sure seems primed to deliver.
