Coming from a small village Dehri, nestled in Bihar’s rice bowl, India pacer Akash Deep has an endearing rustic charm about him. The pacer doesn’t talk in cliches and isn’t over-guarded with his words. To describe his bowling, he uses words like ‘anushaasan’, not the easy-on-the-tongue and more popular ‘discipline’.
His six-wicket haul in the second innings and 10-for in the match helped script a famous win for India. Chasing 608, the steep target India had set, England could only muster 271 runs, a victory of 337 runs.
The other day while talking to the broadcaster, he told Cheteshwar Pujara how “khush” he was back in India, when he came to know that he would be bowling in England, the land of green pitches where the ball swings and seams. “Par bhaiyya, dhoka ho gayaa hamare saath, idhar aaye toh kuch bhi nahi tha, koi madad nahi pitch se … (Brother, I got cheated, once we landed here, there was nothing, no help from the pitch …).”
But like so often in his life, Akash Deep made the best of the cards he was dealt. On a rather flattish brown track and with few slim cracks, he ripped through England’s top-order in the second innings of the Edgbaston Test with a five-wicket haul. On the fifth day morning, he snared wickets of both the overnight batsmen Harry Brooks and Ollie Pope, before he snared Jamie Smith, the first-innings tormentor and the last recognised batsman, with a slow-bouncer after being hit for successive sixes.
The first two scalps gave him a rare record. No one since the great West Indian Michael Holding has taken down four of England’s top five batsmen without any assistance from the fielders.
Ben Duckett, Joe Root and Pope were bowled by Akash Deep while Brook was out lbw. For the boy who hid his cricketing dream from his school teacher, lied to him that he was going to Kolkata to find work, but trained hard to refine his bowling skill, is a self-made man. He has done it all and reached here on his own.
Interestingly, the most talked about Akash Deep delivery wasn’t one that disturbed the stumps, but the Brook lbw. The wicket had a lot to do with his famed “anushasan.” Akash Deep consistently pitched the ball up but made it move off the pitch strategically. All through his first spell to the right-handed Brook, Akash Deep had kept the ball in the small one square feet box just outside the off-stump
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After two balls that went away, he unleashed his big nip-backer. The ball traveling at over 140 kph came in like it was a heavy turning ball by an offie. The unplayable ball hit England’s Next Big batsman on the inner thigh, the Indians were sure they had got their man.
Brook limped across to his captain Ben Stokes at the other end and the two decided to go ahead with the formality of the DRS. They watched the replay on the giant screen and saw the ball thump into Brook. The injured, and insulted, batsman didn’t wait for the ball-tracker and the obvious ‘three red confirmation’, he had already started walking back to the pavilion. Brook was their big hope, he could have been expected to disturb the Indian plan with his stroke play.
Nip-backer from hell
Akash Deep’s deadly ‘nip-backer’ that came onto the stumps like a suddenly u-turning truck was making heads turn and pundits were licking their lips in anticipation. From the commentary box, England captain Michael Vaughan would wonder “Where was this guy?” He went on to say that England needed to be worried. “He can be handful at Lord’s and with that slope … him, Jasprit Bumrah, Siraj …” he tailed off, ominously.
The Lord’s Test starts in three days’ time on Thursday. At the Home of Cricket the storied ground has a famous slope at one end. Bowlers bowling from the opposite end, get extra seam movement into the right-hander. Akash Deep would be “khush” now. The “dhoka” has been avenged.
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Now to answer Vaughan’s “where was he?” question. As England’s luck would have it, Akash Deep got a niggle before the start of the series. The team management would ask for a precautionary stand-by pacer in Harshit Rana while Akash Deep went for scans. It was during the first Test, that the pacer from Bihar who plays for West Bengal got an ‘all ok’ from the medical team.
But since his time in England, during the practice games and training, he has been seen in the company of coaches. He and Gautam Gambhir were seen having long conversations.
The 28-year-old has spoken about those conversations. “The coaches have been sharing their experience. They have told me that even I myself don’t know the kinds of skills I have in my hand. They make me realise how good I am. Such things give confidence and help us take it onto the field,” he said. At Edgbaston, Akash Deep ran through the English top order on a pitch that wasn’t ‘green or lively’. He certainly didn’t know what he could do.
So how was it that Akash Deep got over his disappointment about the changed conditions in England? Having played 38 first-class games on dry and dead pitches, the hardworking work-horse has the experience of bowling on Edgbaston kind flat pitch. There was also something else.
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During the game Akash Deep was asked if there was pressure on him since he was replacing Jasprit Bumrah. “Mai kabhi match ko pressure ki taraha nahi leta hu, mai use mauke ki taraha leta hu, responsibility ki taraha leta hu. (When I get a game I don’t take it as a pressure, I take it as an opportunity and responsibility),” he had said. For a boy who traveled close to 550 kms from his village in Bihar to Kolkata to get a mauka, a lifeline and opportunity, the lifeless track at Edgbaston was no challenge at all.
