Chris Gayle and his record setting 215 runs against Zimbabwe may have been inspired by Rohit Sharma’s ODI double ton but don’t be surprised if there is news soon that an AB de Villiers, a Finch or a Dale Steyn have been looking at the bowling videos of an Umesh Yadav, an Ashwin or a Mohammed Shami.
This may have sounded audacious a couple of India matches ago but now Team India’s bowling department is among the headlines for discipline, intensity and winnability, the kind of stuff which froze the mighty South African batters on the crease at MCG. “It has been all about hunting collectively and executing game plans. There has been a process that has been drilled into each bowler’s mind, and he has let that process take over,” former pacer Javagal Srinath said in his column to the ICC website on Tuesday.
It’s been a joyful transformation under the keen guidance of skipper MS Dhoni and his much touted “executing of plans and putting a process in place.” Earlier, our bowlers were the minnows of the team, an embarrassing chink in the otherwise lionised team of batters and its young, agile muscle. They were the men who kept Dhoni busy in trying to tackle their weaknesses. They were timid punching bags of the media, people who seldom could twist an arm.
No longer so! This much slammed department is the new toast of the World Cup. The talk has veered from a Dale Steyn and a Mitchell Johnson to an Umesh Yadav and a Ravichandran Ashwin, not to mention Mohit Sharma and Mohammed Shami.
Together, they have attacked with the new ball, kept their line, not given room to batters, navigated the power play with a robust 4.2 economy rate and made the most of the total given to them by their own batsmen. Compare this to the Tri-series and you would wonder if they are the same people. A brilliant first 10 overs, a cautious middle and a squeezed up death is what the doctor prescribed and our bowlers have so far followed this perfectly.
And this has happened in just two back-to-back matches that India has played at the World Cup, winning both by convincing margins, a margin that left South African skipper “embarrassed and sad” — and surprised at the discipline, intensity and sustained onslaught of the Indian quicks and spinners.
If these unsung quicks are setting the pace of the tournament, the duo of Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja has disproved the logic of not playing spinners abroad. Ashwin has emerged as Dhoni’s main missile and Jadeja the able supporter from the other end, denying run bursts.
Earlier, wicket-taking bouncers were the kingdom of other teams, like Australia, South Africa and Pakistan. Now with Mohammed Shami banging the ball hard on the ground despite his not so tall height, and taking wickets in the process, like that of the seasoned Younis Khan, shows that a folklore makeover is in the offing.
“By the judicious use of short ball, Shami showed real maturity as he did with his fine execution of plans. He has looked to taking wickets and that has an encouraging sign. He has hit the right line straightaway in both games,” Srinath said.
Dhoni seconded this after the MCG win when he said: “Maybe the wicket also helped us a bit, but still hitting the right areas, the length according to the wicket, was crucial. They quickly assessed what was the right length to bowl and didn’t give too much room. When it was swinging they made sure they bowled a tight length, and when it stopped swinging they were still bowling close to the batsmen’s body. In the first 10 overs, this was one of our best performances,” Dhoni said.
While AB De Villiers was outright disgusted by the “indisciplines” of his main quick Parnell and blamed the ineffectiveness of Steyn on the slowness of the pitch in the earlier part of the day, Yadav, Shami and Mohit Sharma were a picture of correctness at the MCG.
With three quick bowlers working well in tandem, the opposition’s usual ploy of targeting one bowler has not worked. Umesh has done his part while the relatively unknown Mohit has reaped the benefit of good opening spells from his two fellow pacers to make his own mark. Mohit used well the pressure created by Shami and Yadav,” Srinath said.
Umesh had aspirations of being a policeman. That mindset seems to have inspired the tight cordon he laid around the South Africans at Melbourne, not giving them any width whatsoever to try out their shots. The son of a coal mining worker from Vibdharba, he has proved his might with the arm at a consistent 140 kmph even though he often came into the team as a replacement bowler.
Mohit Sharma, who came in as a late replacement to injured Ishant Sharma, has had a fantastic run as the third seamer. With an economy rate of 4.12, he has bowled tight and taken four wickets thus far, including biggies Faf du Plassis and Hashim Amla.
Shami has been even better with an economy rate of 3.82 and six wickets in two games, including that of Quinton de Kock and the three best of Pakistan — Younis, Afridi and Misbah.
In all this talk around the arrival of the Indian pacers, there’s no negating the achievement of the spin duo.
While Ashwin, the exemplary wicket-taker, started it all with maidens at Adelaide and continued to trouble the best batsmen in the world against South Africa, Jadeja has been playing the perfect counterfoil from the other end, a fact vice-captain Virat Kohli acknowledged the other day.
“Their bowling partnership is very important for us. Between the two, they will have to realise, who is going to be aggressive and who is going to play the supporting role,” Kohli said on match eve.
In the two WC matches, Ashwin has taken four wickets and Jadeja two jointly giving away 175 runs in 36.2 overs at an economy rate of just 4.8 runs.
This unusual Indian makeover is something to do with Dhoni’s game plans. Amid breaks, and despite a humiliating Test and tri-series where his bowlers were mauled by Australia and then England too, he has instilled in them the need to attack and take wickets, something he says the new format of the World Cup has aided.