IND vs SA | Takeaways: Jasprit Bumrah’s change in approach and understanding Faf du Plessis’ “weird” decision

06/05/2019

India don’t play attacking cricket like England but they have a good enough pattern in place to shake any team’s formula. That approach was on the show in Southampton today as India beat South Africa to secure their first win of the tournament while sending the latter to a precarious position.

Let’s not blame Faf for his decision tonight

South Africa were already depleted and the moment Dale Steyn was ruled out of the World Cup, their dream of making a comeback was all but over. Coming into the match against India, they had all their hopes pinned on their batsmen and even added an extra spinner in the form of Tabraiz Shamsi to use the long boundaries of Ageas Bowl to good effect. Choosing to bat first was part of the plan as well as they wanted to set a target and ask their bowlers to defend it. However, that came at a cost as they allowed Indian pacers to make use of the pitch early in the morning, which further ensured the spinner had their usual day-out against South Africa in the middle overs.

Why did it have to be that way? Wasn’t keeping the strength of the opposition in the mind as important as playing to one’s strength? But, think about it from Faf’s perspective. A bowling unit that had been ravaged by injury and ruled a player of Dale Steyn’s stature out of the tournament and kept a promising talent Lungi Ngidi out with a hamstring injury, it would be blasphemous for du Plessis to think about bowling first, no matter the green cover. It was natural, in the current circumstances, to focus on putting up a good total.

The batsmen also had to take the blame for the downfall. Instead of playing to their own strength, they played to Kuldeep Yadav and Yuzvendra Chahal’s reputations in the middle overs. Sure enough, Chahal was varying the pace to confuse batsmen with his drift and unleashing the googlies in the middle-overs even more than his partner but the top-order needed to stay within their crease and not move out on a regular basis to counter the threat. The lack of understanding the kind of deliveries that was about to be unleashed brought their end. So outrightly blaming Faf for the decision is kind of harsh.

How Chris Morris kept India in their toes

Chris Morris was a late entrant in the South African team for the World Cup and in all honesty, it needed a strong foothold of reference and logic to have him in any other side in this tournament too, spare Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. However, in the do-or-die encounter against India in Southampton, Morris brought his other side to the fore which have remained mercurial for a major part of his international career - both with the bat and ball.

After India cracked the Proteas top-order and reduced them to 89/5, the lower-order was exposed, but a partnership between Andile Phehlukwayo and David Miller restored the sanity a bit before Yuzvendra Chahal sent both of them packing. It was an ideal scenario for India, but Morris joined forces with Kagiso Rabada to help the hosts recover and go past the 200-run mark.

However, his moment under the sun came with the ball - a forever underperforming side of him - as he took the clue from Kagiso Rabada and bowled short balls on a regular interval to Sharma and Kohli. While all eyes were on Rabada-Kohli duel, Morris flew under the radar and bowled 14 consecutive dot balls. That translated to a figure of 6-0-10-0 at one point and even when he ended his spell today, he had conceded only 36 runs in 10 overs, with MS Dhoni’s wicket to his name. It was a day of validation for him, and most importantly, he can start believing his match-winning ability as well.

Jasprit Bumrah’s subtle change in plan with situations

Is there any pacer under more scrutiny, and most importantly, under so much of expectations, than Jasprit Bumrah in this World Cup? The answer is a big NO. Carrying a billion expectations on his shoulders, he didn’t have anything to prove rather he had everything to show on the grandest stage of the sport. And think what.. he did.

He was also helped by the conditions as that allowed him to use the green surface and the resultant seam movement that came with it. He was right on the money especially from the off, beating the bat three times in his first over, which troubled the Africans. The shorter length also helped him cut out the yorkers and helped him save energy for the second spell.

When he returned to bowl in the 29th over, Bumrah suddenly brought a different aspect to the fore. Instead of bowling shorter, primarily attacked the top of all the left-handed batsmen’s off stump, with the occasional short ball. That was possibly due to the fact that Quinton de Kock, whom Bumrah was bowling in the first spell, was good in cutting and Miller is better on the drive. The plan, from the looks of it, seemed like to attack the line of stumps and negating the leg-side to bring chances of taking wickets to the fore.