India's perfect team effort produces near-perfect day
Of all the good days this Indian team has had away from home, this must be one of the most pleasing ones. Virat Kohli often speaks about the importance of that one big session where they fail to resist the opposition's momentum. It's usually a time when they don't fall to the conditions; they just fall. Brisbane 2014-15, Durban 2013-14 and Manchester 2014 come to mind. On the last Friday of 2018, in Melbourne, that team at the receiving end of that momentum was Australia, against the travelling Indians.
India had begun the fourth day in Brisbane 26 runs behind with nine second-innings wickets in hand, with nothing in the pitch threatening a result. They had an accident at the nets before the start of play, some disquiet in the dressing room, and before they could recover they had effectively lost five wickets for 16 runs, setting up a four-day finish for Australia. In Durban, India won the toss on a flat track, underachieved in the first innings, had half an eye on the rain in the second, and lost an unlosable Test. In Manchester all India had to do was bat out two sessions on the third day, and then watch it rain for the next two, but they couldn't.
That's the nature of collapses. You take your eye off for a second, give good attacks an opening, and they make you pay. Then you look back at those sessions and get frustrated. Now, how pleasing it will be in that Indian change-room to know that the opposition is looking back ruefully at that session and a half. Just look at the scenario on the third morning at the MCG.
Everybody, except those who have batted on this pitch and had to put aside their natural stroke-play, had decried the track and was bracing for a draw. India's scoring rate had been slow because of the pitch and some good bowling, which meant Australia had to possibly bat four sessions in their first innings to get close to safety, especially given some of the rain forecast for the final two days. And yet there they were, bowled out for 151 in a little over two sessions, unable to resist the momentum created by one of India's most complete bowling performances outside home.
This is a performance that had visible imprints from everybody, and not just those on the park. From analyst CKM Dhananjai to bowling coach Bharat Arun to those responsible for keeping these bowlers fit to captain Virat Kohli to the bowlers themselves to the fielders taking catches, this was a perfect storm that burst through the little opening Australia left by dropping their guard on what seemed to be a dreary pitch. Just the shots that they played early on, driving on the up without getting used to the pace of a track that made Cheteshwar Pujara score his slowest century, gave you the impression they were not treating this the way they did their innings in Adelaide and Perth.
And India bowled with perfect plans. First it was Aaron Finch, who probably was out "planned Dhananjai caught Agarwal bowled Ishant". This was a repeat of his dismissal in Dubai when he drove with hard hands to short mid-on. This plan had to have been discussed at the bowling meeting headed by Arun, and bought into by the rest. Kohli had Mayank Agarwal at the right spot. Ishant Sharma delivered inswinger after inswinger. Finch failed to keep it down. Agarwal dived to his left to pluck it inches off the ground. This was a dream team dismissal.
Having hit Marcus Harris in the head with a bouncer on the second evening, Jasprit Bumrah chose to bounce him again. It was sharp, straight at him, and Harris decided he was not going to risk being hit again; it cost him his wicket. This was not a pitch doing tricks - yes it was more suited to India but not a 151 all out track by any imagination - but India just bowled perfectly to perfectly formed plans. The fields changed for every batsman, the lengths too. There was a blueprint for every wicket, and that blueprint was kept handy for reference. Shaun Marsh, for example, had a short-square leg where a few flicks off the hip went aerially.
Almost by accident India realised the folly of not using left-arm spin against left-hand batsmen. Their own right-hand batsmen have struggled against offspin. And here they have a plethora of right-arm quicks to create nice rough outside the off stump of left-hand batsmen. Once Ravindra Jadeja finds the right pace to target that spot with, he will do it all day. No reverse-swept boundary from Usman Khawaja is going to wear him off that spot, not when India have batted first and piled on 443.
And then there was the magic of Bumrah and Mohammed Shami. Bumrah is of course blessed with freakishly malleable forearms that give him both the pace and deception that Shoaib Akhtar and Lasith Malinga were blessed with. He has the cricketing brain to go with it; he must spend a lot of time watching the cricket because when India are batting first, he knows what lengths to bowl as soon as he comes out. If he has to bowl first, his second spell is always heaps better than his first. Here he was spot on with lengths, and when Shaun Marsh and Travis Head had a partnership, he produced a moment of absolute genius: a devilishly dipping slower delivery last ball before lunch. It was only his second slower ball this series, and add a tick to team work again - Rohit Sharma nudged him to bowl it.
When the next partnership got going, for more than 17 overs, between Tim Paine and Pat Cummins, with the 60-over-old ball going soft, Shami came on to create something out of nothing. As a result of that near-perfect bowling display, India might just have insured themselves against the third-innings collapse and the expected rain on days four and five. If they can repeat with the ball in the second innings what they did in the first, India could treat themselves to the immensely satisfying sight of winning despite rain on what was termed as a dreary old track.