Ideally, India seems comfortably stationed in the driver’s seat after whatever play has happened on the first day of the opening Test in England. Batting first, England was jolted to a rude awakening, thanks to a brilliant delivery from Bumrah that claimed Rory Burns for naught.
Zak Crawley and Dom Sibley stitched together a decent stand but Mohammad Siraj removed Crawley as the latter edged to Pant. Shami joined the party shortly as the next man to depart was Dom Sibley after a dogged stand in the middle.
That is when the English skipper, Joe Root and Jonny Bairstow stitched together a sedulous stand that once again started making India uncomfortable about the early advantage that they copped.
However, Mohammad Shami chimed in with a sudden explosion of scalps and England is currently stationed at 160 for 9 with almost every bowler getting a bite of the cherry.
Now, even before the Test match started, there were a lot of questions about Ravichandran Ashwin not playing the match as pundits believed that his expertise against England will come in extremely handy. However, as the match started, the entire dynamics of the game changed with Indian bowlers wreaking havoc.
Jadeja could only bowl three overs as it was the Indian pacers who did all the damage sharing eight scalps between them until now. Shami and Bumrah have picked up three while Shardul Thakur has claimed a brace.
With all said and done, if one would look at the bench strength of India’s bowling, there are still monikers who can actually bring down dynasties. A quick glance at it would name Ishant Sharma who is still India’s one of the best fast bowlers in Test cricket especially in overseas conditions, Umesh Yadav who can still produce significant carnage, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, India’s best bowler in the shorter format of the games and Ravichandran Ashwin, India’s second-best off-spinner.
This was also tweeted by famous author and editor, Siddhartha Vaidyanathan and the post read,” Ishant, Umesh, bhuvi and Ashwin is a pretty good ‘second’ attack”.
Ishant, Umesh, bhuvi and Ashwin is a pretty good ‘second’ attack
— Siddhartha Vaidyanathan (@sidvee) August 4, 2021
Maybe, India is undergoing a phase where IPL has actually opened up a massive pool of talents which makes India’s second-string prospects even brighter.
