The second innings was to bowl as many bouncers as possible: Umesh Yadav

Umesh Yadav capped a brilliant home season with a decisive spell in the series decider at Dharamsala. He bowled with pace and venom during the Border-Gavaskar Trophy as he finished with 17 sticks off 4 Tests, the most for a fast bowler in either team.

The game was right in balance when India took a slender lead of 32 runs in the first innings. The wicket was two paced and anything around 170-180 would have been tough for India to chase in the fourth innings. That is when Umesh rose to the challenge and produced one of his best opening bursts sending both the openers back in the hut within the first hour.

He teamed up with Bhuvneshwar Kumar to send a barrage of bouncers against the visiting batsmen which surprised the Australians. Yadav conceded that he wanted to give Australians a taste of their own medicine by pushing at them a lot of bouncers early on.

“The way their pacers were bowling bouncers, especially Pat Cummins, the plan in the second innings was to bowl as many bouncers as possible,” he said.

Bhuvneshwar too was not far behind as he sent down a few bouncers himself which eventually a short ball got the better of Steven Smith. The Australians were clearly rattled by the Indian new ball bowlers’ hostile opening spell and were three down within the first 10 overs into the second innings.

Both the bowlers admitted to have been greeted with a lot of short-pitched stuff while batting and hence they wanted to give it back to the Australians. Their initial burst helped the spinners control the game thereafter as they swept through the middle order to skittle the Australians out for a paltry 137.

Yadav came back to pick up his third wicket of the innings in his second spell and finished with outstanding figures of 3/29. He has been instrumental in India’s success in the past few months and has delivered telling spells with both new as well as the old ball.

– Written by Salman Khan