Australia's Mitchell Starc celebrates the dismissal of India's Ravichandran Ashwin during the day one of the second cricket test match between Australia and India at the Adelaide Oval in Adelaide, Australia, Friday, Dec. 6, 2024. (AP Photo/James Elsby)After the second day’s play at Adelaide, India’s bowling coach Morne Morkel rued the lengths and lines his groups persisted in Australia’s innings. “If I wind my clock to the first Test match, our lines and lengths were exceptional. It was sort of the blueprint for us going into this Test series. We wanted to bring the stumps into play as much as possible,” he would say.
Except that the blueprint that reaped success in Perth was not quite the blueprint that would have succeeded in Adelaide, under lights with the pink ball and searing humidity, resulting in sweaty moisture.
It was not a secret either. Anyone who has seen, let alone played, a day-night pink-ball Test in Adelaide would know that it swings more than it does under sunlight and with a red ball. With the latter, Adelaide could be a batting beauty, especially when the sun shines. Virat Kohli would tell you. But the combination of lights and the pink ball wakes up the slumbering beast of the surface.
It is a task Mitchell Starc volunteers to perform. He has an enviable record in pink-ball Tests —72 wickets at 17.81 in 13 Tests. No one has mastered the pink-ball mechanics as Starc has. No one has swung the ball as much, and no one interrogated the technique and resolve of batsmen as he did in this Test, because no one hit the fuller lengths as often. He showed what India lacked — a full-length swing merchant. In the past they were bountiful, those slaves to clouds and humidity, who profited when the capricious weather fancied them with its favours. The lost ilk of Kapil Dev, Madan Lal, Karsan Ghavri, Manoj Prabhakar, and more recently Praveen Kumar, who devilishly swung the ball both ways.
Those wizards of wobble are a rare breed these days. India no longer possesses one in their stable. The closest they have is Akash Deep. They clearly missed a trick by not playing him in Adelaide. Bowling full is not his default setting but he is more proficient at it than someone like Harshit Rana. He can swing the ball, and skids it too. Rana was the perfect choice for the Perth surface, which had bounce and pace. The lengths suited him naturally.
But Adelaide under lights was different. It still had pace and bounce, but provided swing too. So India needed someone who could harness the movement the new pink ball generated when the twilight set in. Akash Deep’s skill-set suited the conditions more than that of Rana. Besides, he was India’s most hostile fast bowler after Jasprit Bumrah during the home season.
But bustling hit-the-deck operators are preferred in most places, barring perhaps England. They are workhorses with pace and energy. They are a failsafe option on most surfaces, unlike swing bowlers who can be cannon fodder if the ball rebels to bend.
But in conditions where the ball moves alarmingly in the air, the humbler swing-artistes become a deathlier proposition. Even if they don’t possess the speed of Starc, they could rip through batting orders, especially one as muddled as Australia’s now. The world over, there is an acute shortage of them. James Anderson and Tim Southee were the last among the swing titans.
At no stage did India miss them more than on the first night in Adelaide. India’s seamers were armed with the pink ball under lights, when batting was most taxing. After being shut out for 180, they had prime conditions to redress the game’s balance. Instead, their frequencies fluctuated in the hard-short length bands. The cagey Marnus Labuschagne and Nathan McSweeney comfortably neutered India’s seamers on the backfoot. They eschewed drives, potentially the most impulse shot on the wicket, because India barely bowled full or tempted them. When they did, they beat the outside edge or drew loose shots.
But India’s seamers were not persistent enough. Australia survived 33 overs for the loss of one wicket and were halfway to India’s first innings score. That then was the match. There was to be no comeback. Under rasping sunlight the next morning and afternoon, Travis Head minced India’s seamers into meat. Some amount of swing lingered in the morning too, but required the expertise of a swing bowler to fully extract it.
India’s dilemma was understandable. It’s hard to dismantle a winning combination no doubt, but the right bowler for the right pitch could make a world of difference. It’s the same folly that India made in the Perth Test in 2018-19, when they chose an all-pace attack on a surface that eventually assisted spinners. India cannot undo the past but can learn from past failings when they reach Brisbane for the next Test.
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