A loud roar erupted at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad when India captain Rohit Sharma won the toss and elected to field first in the 2023 World Cup contest vs Pakistan. Not sure if the roar was for the decision, but the near-packed stadium wasn’t going to miss any opportunity to get behind the Men in Blue. The sea of blue in the stands made their presence felt early in the contest but were reduced to mere silent spectators as every boundary (three in the second over alone) which Mohammed Siraj conceded in his opening spell, pin-drop silence filled the colossal structure.
After just three overs with the new ball, the knives were out for Siraj who seemed to be nursing the hangover from the Afghanistan game, where he lacked control and wasn’t able to find the right lengths. All that, however, was short-lived as perception changed in the next over when rub of green went Siraj’s way and he trapped Abdullah Shafique in front with a delivery which kept low and turned the seamer into a different beast after the early success. He figured the right length, something he has been struggling with since the Delhi game, and the low bounce made him a dangerous customer, especially with the oldish ball where he was getting deliveries to angle in sharply and skid off the surface too.
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The exact drill was repeated for well-set Babar Azam who was undone by pace, angle and the skid off the surface. Looking to dab one down to third-man, the right-hander failed to put bat to ball as it once again kept a tad low and clipped top of off.
At 155/2 in 29.3 overs, Pakistan were cruising at that stage and India needed something to go their way. It did, and well and truly triggered a collapse Pakistan could never recover from. Saud Shakeel came and went, Iftikhar Ahmed was unlucky to glove a Kuldeep Yadav delivery back onto his stumps but the cherry on the cake was the delivery by Jasprit Bumrah to outfox Mohammad Rizwan for 49.
An off-cutter pitched outside off came back in sharply, travelled through day light between bat and pad, created by the deception, to crash into the stumps. That was wicket No.6 and curtains were well and truly drawn on the innings courtesy an excellent bowling performance in the middle overs – a period of play where India have often fallen short in this format in the past.
It wasn’t the case on Saturday as all bowlers aligned well with the conditions and didn’t lose track even when wickets weren’t coming. When Babar and Rizwan were batting together, the shoulders of Team India were dropping but the spin-twins Ravindra Jadeja and Kuldeep ensured to keep a check on flow of runs. Babar and Rizwan added 82 runs for the third wicket but they came off 103 balls. Even when they were in control, India didn’t allow them to dominate. And that is where they gripped proceedings and just waited for an opportunity to pounce on, and then dominate the way they did.
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From the seam of Bumrah and Siraj to the spin of Jadeja and Kuldeep to the supporting role by Hardik Pandya and Shardul Thakur, bowling performances don’t get as complete as this. That too on a surface where 300 looked par. There was variable bounce as the Pakistan innings went deeper but it was the madness during those 35 deliveries where the bowlers vindicated the captain’s comments at the pre-match presser.
“We’ve got the guys who can adapt to different kind of conditions as well. So that is something which gives us confidence as well going into any sort of conditions. So, whether it is a spinning pitch, seaming track, flat pitch, we’ve got the guys who can do the job for us,” Rohit Sharma had said on Friday.
The guys certainly did the job and gave a brilliant account of why this bowling attack is not dependent on conditions.
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