da gbg bet： India are in transition but the leader of their attack in the West Indies stepped up big time

da realsbet： Alagappan Muthu24-Jul-20231:01

Dasgupta: Siraj led the pace attack under pressure

“In the morning, we chatted about it, that the wicket was tough to bowl on. It’s slow and nothing is happening, like seam movement or spin. At the end, there was some turn but overall it was very easy for batting.”Their batting was also very defensive. So there were no chances for us because they didn’t play any attacking shots. To sum up our effort, it was great from our bowlers and each one of them did what was expected of them.”A little over 12 hours after India’s bowling coach Paras Mhambrey said all of that, he was watching his boys cut through the West Indies line-up.The missing link between India needing 67 overs to pick up four first-innings wickets on Saturday but only 7.4 to pick up five on Sunday was the new ball. It swung.This was a significant window of opportunity, which came with the catch that it was likely to be a small one. These are the moments that a good team seizes.India have been at this crossroads many times in overseas Test matches. Two of the more high-profile ones turned on the back of not so much the mistakes themselves but the timing of them. Their collapse on the sixth day of the first World Test Championship final and their letting Travis Head off the hook by never inviting him to hook when he was new to the crease in the most recent World Test Championship final.That hurt will never go away. Like 8-0 in 2011-12 never went away. In fact, a straight line can be traced from there to India having much improved fast bowling stocks. Perhaps in a similar way, the limitations that cost them those two ICC titles will now help them build once again.2:38

Siraj: Taking a five-for on a flat wicket isn’t easy

There were some good signs in Port-of-Spain, particularly from Mohammed Siraj. Did you know that he has been among the toughest quick bowlers to face in the last year? He has induced a false shot 211 times in 13 innings. And that’s while playing on the raging turners of Mirpur and Nagpur. The featherbed at Ahmedabad. And of course, this one here at the Queen’s Park Oval. The other quicks above him – there are 11 – the likes of Stuart Broad and Mitchell Starc and Matt Henry and Kagiso Radaba tend to play at venues much more suitable to their craft.Only a few minutes after Siraj walked back to the pavilion having bowled 3.4 overs for 13 runs and four wickets on the fourth morning, West Indies leaked 100 runs in 12.2 overs. This guy is that good and he has worked really hard for it. He didn’t rest on having a top-notch outswinger to the right-hand batters. He went out and found a way to bring the ball back into them. He knew that in order to be great, he had to test both edges of the bat. He had to create that uncertainty. In some of symmetry’s best work, two of his wickets came from balls leaving the right-hand batters and the other two from balls snarling back into them. Jason Holder’s downfall had the added subtlety of a bowler going wide of the crease to trick the batter into playing the angle, and therefore playing inside the line to be nicked off.Siraj is dangerously close to being a complete fast bowler. And he has only been playing Test cricket for two-and-a-half years.Mukesh Kumar looks a quick study as well. The control he offered on day three was crucial. The wickets he took were also significant. He had Alick Athanaze lbw with conventional swing. He used reverse seam – the ball moving off the pitch in the direction of the shine – to subdue Kirk McKenzie. And he hounded Kraigg Brathwaite on the front foot because he knew that’s the one place on a cricket field he doesn’t feel comfortable. On a quicker pitch, he might have had him lbw too.India have dominated this tour but that was expected when they were up against a team ranked eighth and a batting line-up that has routinely underperformed. Even so, the fact that they made what needed to happen happen – a collapse so that they can get in to bat early and set the pace in order to leave themselves enough time to bowl West Indies out again – will please the team management. They know they are in the middle of a transition but it is entirely possible that they’re relishing the hell out of it. Mhambrey’s smile as he greeted Siraj, who returned to the dressing room with the ball held aloft, was a dead giveaway.