Even the mighty Jasprit Bumrah is bound for a failur or two and the India speedster could not deliver his magic to help the team put up a fight after scoring only 125 at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in the second T20I on Friday.
Even as he picked up two wickets and conceded only 26 runs in four overs, Bumrah’s wayward lengths came under some scrutiny from former India batter Robin Uthappa, who felt the ace speedster was bound to be erratic when desperate.
“When we were bowling after scoring 125, the start was very important. If we had picked up two or three wickets in the first three or four overs, the game could have been closer because we have quality spinners in the middle overs. I felt we were probably trying too hard to pick up wickets. So we got a little wayward,” Uthappa said on Star Sports.
Erratic when desperate
“I have observed that whenever Bumrah gets desperate to pick up wickets, he becomes slightly wayward, and when he is disciplined and hits a good line and length, he mostly picks up wickets. Australia took full advantage of that waywardness at the start, the way we started with the ball in the second innings,” Uthappa added.
The 2007 World Cup winner also lamented the abject batting display from India, save for the half-century from Abhishek Sharma and a cameo from Harshit Rana.
“Slightly disappointing, because you had obviously lost the toss, but the batters could have given themselves a little time. They chose the aggressive batting option and they lost too many wickets in the first six overs because of that,” he said.
“Abhishek had to manage the innings after six overs. He had a good partnership with Harshit, but apart from that partnership, no batter stood with him, so that India could have scored at least 150. This team will get a lot of learning from this. This young team will have to understand that there is a slight extra bounce here and they will have to adjust their game plans accordingly,” Uthappa observed.
