Injured and inexperienced, bowlers keep India in fight
What’s the difference between the Indian team that played its third Test match ever — at Eden Gardens, Kolkata, in 1934 — and the team that took the field at the Gabba for the fourth and final Test of the Border-gavaskar trophy on Friday?
The bowling unit of the 1934 team, having played all of two Tests previously, had more experience than the one on the field in Brisbane right now.
At Brisbane, India’s beleaguered bowling attack was led by Mohammed Siraj, all of two Tests old. His new-ball partner was Thangarasu Natarajan, in Australia as a net bowler for the Test leg of the tour till Thursday. Their two fast bowling partners: Navdeep Saini, made his debut in the previous Test; and Shardul Thakur, who made his debut in 2018 but bowled just 10 balls before being injured, was now playing his second Test. Completing the attack was another debutant — off-spinning allrounder
NEW DELHI:
Washington Sundar.
Here’s another number: zero. That’s the number of times before this Test that a team with a combined wickets tally of less than 100 has played a team with a combined tally of more than 1,000 wickets. The Indian XI boasted a total of 13 wickets walking into Gabba; Australia had 1,033.
This is all to say that this series is no longer about a clash of two teams; no longer a matter of skill against skill, but simply about heart, about an injury-ravaged side with hardly a standing XI, an inexperienced and tired squad, trying to stand up to Australia at their most impregnable home venue.