Inside out | Always rising as bowler, Bumrah now blossoming as leader of the attack

It's the 19th over of Australia's second innings, but for a change from the first innings,  Mohammed Siraj has already bowled 21 balls in his first spell. This opportunity too, of bowling with a relatively new ball, arrived through an injury to his senior partner Umesh Yadav, who could not bowl a longish spell with the new ball due to a calf injury. Siraj was working a nice rhythm while Ravichandran Ashwin was employing tricks with the ball to keep Marnus Labuschagne in check. He eventually dismissed him with one that kept going on with the arm.

For the hosts, Matthew Wade was looking in no mood to give his wicket away, like in the first innings, and batting vigilantly against Ashwin, until delivery from Siraj moved off the pitch to hit his pad. Siraj showed all his exuberance and pleaded hard with the skipper Ajinkya Rahane to go for the review and he did so, albeit very reluctantly. The ball-tracking showed the ball had pitched way outside the leg stump and it could have been predicted on the basis of Rahane’s reluctance in going for the review. On the face of it, the decision of going for the review looked awful, Siraj’s adamant demand for it looked ever so ridiculous. 

Siraj can be forgiven for his passion on his Test debut, but Rahane got sucked into that pleading from Siraj and India lost a review. The display of the ball tracker on the big screen would have been seen by all, including Siraj and it must not have been great viewing for the young pacer, especially the replay of him calling on his captain to call for the review. It could have stuck in his mind and he could have felt the heat of a bad error in judgment. But the only pacer who was left for the tourists on the pitch other than Siraj, and their talisman with the ball — Jasprit Bumrah patted Siraj’s back more than once as the young man was walking towards the end of his bowling mark with his head down in guilt of wasting a review, and disappointment of not getting a wicket he thought he had.

In Siraj’s first spell, Bumrah was fielding at the mid-off position, a place where those who are stationed play an important role as bowlers go through long spells where they set a batsman up. At the same venue, in 2018, Bumrah was at the receiving end of wise words from Rohit Sharma standing at mid-off, which led to him bowling a slower delivery on the last ball before the lunch interval that left Shaun Marsh looking like a student who saw a question from part of syllabus he did not even look at.

It was critical for Siraj to come good on the third day as the pitch was only getting better to bat, with the sun coming out and India without one of their three seamers. Ashwin was bowling with superb control but he could not bowl forever while Bumrah had already finished his first spell. 

In his short playing career, Bumrah has shown all the qualities of being a thinking cricketer, but on the third day of the MCG Test, he understood that Siraj needed a bit of comforting reassurance that he belonged to this level, in order to ease himself into bowling according to his strengths. It was not the first time Siraj got the back of Bumrah, as the current spearhead of the Indian pace bowling had also spoken very highly of his performance in the first innings and, especially, the confidence shown by Siraj in trying to execute all his plans on his debut Test.

“He has worked really hard and come up the ranks. He was eager to bowl in the first session itself. There wasn’t a lot happening after lunch and he (Siraj) bowled with a lot of control. Suddenly he started getting some movement and wanted to make the best of it. Playing his first Test match, he bowled really well and had the confidence of using all his skills. It’s a heartening sign for us and hopefully, he will continue doing that,” Bumrah had said at the end of the first day’s play. 

Bumrah’s move of comforting Siraj paid off as he moved on from that horrible review call and the focus to bowl in the channel outside off stump was regained by the time he returned with his second spell, after the fall of Steve Smith at the hands of Bumrah, and Wade through a faster spinner off Jadeja. Siraj was brought back into the attack and on cue, his first delivery shaped away from Travis Head after pitching around the off stump line and lured the left-hander into pushing away from the body. The outside edge was found and so was the transformation of Siraj from a condition of putting his head down with disappointment to the delight of eliminating yet another hurdle in the path of his country’s character-defining win at the MCG.

It must not have been easy for Bumrah to lead such a raw bowling attack where he, with a 15-match long career, is the most trusted pacer in the lineup. But if the first two Tests of the ongoing series are any sort of evidence to go by on the maturity of Jasprit Bumrah, it can be fairly said that the gap the retirement of Zaheer Khan or the absence of Ishant Sharma has left in terms of a guide for the younger players, has been started to be filled by the new talisman in the form of Bumrah.

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