It was one man, who carried India through the Border-Gavaskar Trophy. He was overbowled, mismanaged and eventually forced to take a back seat as Jasprit Bumrah-less India ran out of steam in the fifth and final Test against Australia in Sydney. India required one big final effort from their saviour Bumrah, who had a legendary series with 32 wickets, having bowled 151.2 overs across five matches. However, it wasn't to be as Australia cruised to the 162-run target to win the Border-Gavaskar Trophy after 10 years and qualify for the World Test Championship final.
Australia's points percentage (PCT) jumped to 63.72 and even if they lose the remaining two games against Sri Lanka in the ongoing cycle, their PCT will still be better than both India and Sri Lanka. There are a couple of Test assignments still left but the finale has already been decided as Australia will take on South Africa at Lord's in June with the two-time finalists India getting knocked out.
India lost six Tests in their last two series, losing 3-0 at home to New Zealand and now as many games in Adelaide, Melbourne and now at Sydney to tank the chance of going into the final third time in a row. India's defensive strategy cost them big time and came back to bite them hard, whether it was selection or gameplan, India were always trying to avoid a loss, rather than pushing for a win.
Having more all-rounders than specialists meant that the likes of Bumrah and Mohammed Siraj were bowling much more than they would and should have and it eventually cost them. Bumrah not being able to bowlfor a full innings and India playing two spinners on a green pitch, with the series on the line and WTC final spot at stake, questions will be raised on the coach, the think-tank and the captain.
Winning in Perth seemed to be an outlier as the players were fresh and baying for blood and the performance just fell off the cliff post that. The defensive approach from the captain Rohit Sharma in terms of field placements on several occasions, the form of the premier batters and just the abject show from the batters all series apart from KL Rahul and Yashasvi Jaiswal in a couple of innings, in addition to the tactics and approach, that just didn't work.
India lacked in planning rather than effort. Bumrah, who won the Player of the Series, with 32 wickets in 151.2 overs, seemed like was left doing the job all alone as it looks worse with the 1-3 scoreline against India. Prasidh Krishna, who was breathing fire on a spicy pitch in Sydney just played one Test match through the series, Harshit Rana after his debut in Perth was ineffective in Adelaide before Akash Deep was included in the side for the next two matches.
India always lacked that fourth seamer as the two spearheads were overbowled and eventually grounded to dust that one of them couldn't even feature. The final day in Sydney summed up India's series, tactics and approach in a nutshell.
The third and final day of the Test match began with India's innings being wrapped up quickly by Cummins and Scott Boland, who ended up getting 10 wickets for the match for just 76 runs, including a six-fer in the second innings. 162 could have been tricky if India had Bumrah. Defending that sort of a target with effectively just two bowlers, India were asking a lot from themselves.
Still, Prasidh made the game interesting by taking three wickets in the first session. However, it was fitting that Travis Head, India's tormentor all summer, was at the end with Beau Webster finishing things off on debut. India from taking pride in a 12-year home series record and 10-year Border-Gavaskar Trophy win record, have gone on to lose both of them and not being in the WTC final for the first time in history. Will heads roll? They should, but will they? Your guess is as good as ours.
