 "Akash Deep, Siraj prove their worth with Edgbaston heroics as momentum shifts sharply in Test series")
A team can score all the runs in the world, but cannot hope to win a match if they don’t get their bowling combination right. That was the overwhelming worry for captain Shubman Gill, head coach Gautam Gambhir and the rest of the Indian team as they arrived in Birmingham for the second Test against England.
And yet, level the series they did at Edgbaston on Sunday, thrashing Ben Stokes’ men by a jaw-dropping margin of 336 runs . The very team that had failed to defend 370-plus targets in each of their last two away Tests against England had suddenly dominated a match from start to finish, with the five-match series suddenly thrown wide open.
The biggest change in India’s performance in Leeds and in Birmingham was the manner in which the bowling unit stood tall and packed a punch. While Bumrah had cut a frustrated figure at Headingley due to lack of support from the other end, Mohammad Siraj and Akash Deep hunted like a pair of hungry wolves. Especially with the brand new Dukes cherry in hand. That too on a featherbed where India amassed more than 1,000 runs across both innings – with captain Shubman Gill alone scoring 430.
One would have been forgiven for having doubts on this attack’s ability to withstand the ‘Bazball’ charge, especially in the fourth innings. And especially after the team chose to retain Prasidh Krishna – the seamer who had been hit for more than six runs an over in both innings in the first Test, his expensive spells allowing the opposition batters to wriggle out of tight corners and surge ahead.
Akash had enjoyed a memorable debut against the same team in Ranchi last year, but there were doubts over his effectiveness outside India after the tour of Australia, where he had collected five wickets in two matches at an average of 54. As for Siraj, he had the added weight of leading the attack in Bumrah’s absence besides tightening his own lines and lengths to avoid getting hit all over the park.
Impact Shorts
More ShortsIndia’s new-ball pair sets tone after batters flatten England
On a surface where captain Gill’s majestic 269 helped India post a mammoth 587 and ground the hosts’ hopes to the dirt, it was Siraj and Akash who made the Dukes ball talk and had the top half of the English batting order dancing to their tunes.
The two Indians breathed fire and troubled batters with late movement on a wicket where the English attack had run out of answers, especially during Gill’s partnerships with Ravindra Jadeja and Washington Sundar. The result – England getting reduced to 84/5, losing half their side while trailing the visitors by more than 500 runs.
Had it not been for Harry Brook and Jamie Smith’s explosive rescue act, the two middle-order batters adding 303 for the sixth wicket that took their team past 400, the game might have very well inside three days.
Siraj and Akash went on to prove that their heroics on Thursday evening and Friday morning were by no means a one-off – triggering a late collapse that saw the hosts lose their last five wickets for 20 runs.
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That was followed by an encore of India’s clinical new ball show in the first innings, with the Englishmen reduced to 83/5 in their chase of an improbable 608-run target, leaving the result of the game a mere formality in the absence of a thunderstorm.
And for a change, Siraj and Akash’s disciplined spells appear to have rubbed off on their colleagues in the bowling department; after leaking 72 runs in 13 overs in the first innings, Prasidh had bowled with an economy under three and was clever with his slower deliveries. And Jadeja was breathing down the necks of the tail-enders with as many as five close-in fielders.
Akash proves his worth on foreign soil with 10-fer
The most impressive of them all, though, was Akash, who only got better as the game progressed. After playing a supporting role in the first innings, it was the Bengal pacer originally hailing from Bihar’s Sasaram who stood tall and took charge during the English innings.
While Siraj had drawn first blood during the fourth innings by inducing an aerial drive straight to backward point off Zak Crawley’s bat with 11 on the board, it was Akash who ran through the rest of England’s top five in a memorable spell, which included a beauty to batting stalwart Joe Root that the legendary Sachin Tendulkar has described as the “ball of the series” .
The cherry on top of the cake was Akash completing his maiden five-for and a 10-wicket match haul, which he later dedicated to his elder sister , whom he later revealed is fighting cancer.
“They (bowlers) were magnificent and I think the way we were able to get through the top-order, that was important to us, and both those bowlers bowled brilliantly and even Prasidh, he didn’t get as many wickets as them, but he also bowled brilliantly,” Gill said during the post-match presentation ceremony after India bowled England out for 271 to level the five-match series 1-1.
“He (Akash) bowled with so much heart. The areas and lengths he hit, he was getting the ball to move both ways. On wickets like these, it’s difficult to do that, he was just magnificent for us,” he added.
Gill confirmed during the post-match interview that Bumrah will be returning to the playing XI during the third Test at Lord’s, which gets underway just four days from now. And after the events of Edgbaston over the course of the last five days, India suddenly appear to have the more complete of the two attacks.
Things certainly look promising for Gill, who collected his first win as India Test captain in Birmingham, and his men in their quest for a first series win on English soil in nearly two decades.
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