India’s captain Jasprit Bumrah celebrates with teammates the wicket of Australia’s Marnus Labuschagne on the third day of the first cricket test between Australia and India in Perth, Australia, Sunday, Nov. 24, 2024.
India vs Australia: Coming on the back of a 3-0 whitewash against New Zealand at home and the non-availability of key players Rohit Sharma and Shubman Gill meant that not too many people gave India a chance to win the first Test in Perth of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy. Additionally, the side also got bowled out for just 150 runs on Day 1.
However, post the batting effort India turned the game on its head with some exceptional bowling by stand-in skipper Jasprit Bumrah and matured batting from the likes of Yashasvi Jaiswal to register a 295-run win. “My son is also here and wife. I shall celebrate with them. He is very young of course but I have stories to tell him when he grows. I can tell him he was in the stands when India won an important win,” said Bumrah after the win to Press.
Bumrah picked up eight wickets in the game and every time he came into bowl it felt like the wicket was around the corner. When asked about does he thinks he got into the heads of the Aussie batters he would respond by saying: “In all honesty, I wasn’t thinking about them. Was trying to focus on what I wanted to do. Just thought the ball would seam around and I just wanted to do that.”
“The message to the bowling group was don’t be too desperate as sometimes it can happen when you are bowled out that cheaply. As it can lead to errors,” Bumrah said. “You tend to bowl a bit short here because of the bounce. We were focusing on our strengths (first innings) we get a lot of bowled LBWs” the 30-year-old added on lengths the team wanted to bowl.
The skipper was awarded the Man Of the Match after the game however he would acknowledge that he would give it to young Jaiswal for his marathon 161-run knock in the 2nd innings which was the catalyst for India’s massive 487/6d. Along with Jaiswal, Virat Kohli too scored a ton stretching India’s lead to 533 runs.
Both Nitish Reddy and Harshit Rana who were on debut too did not look out of place. Rana picked up four wickets in the match and Nitish chipped in with cameos in both innings and picked a wicket of Mitchell Marsh in 2nd innings. “The debutants weren’t nervous at all. Both wanted responsibility. More than ready to do it. Very positive sign. Youngsters coming in mey bhook bahut hai. (Very hungry). There is no fear,” Bumrah concluded.
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First uploaded on: 25-11-2024 at 15:10 IST
