Australia’s tail defies India after Bumrah fireworks to set up thrilling MCG finish

It’s not as though this series wasn’t already about Jasprit Bumrah. Since the very first evening of the first Test, when he tore up Australia’s top order in the fading light of Perth, he has been both the threat and the act of making good on it. Eight wickets there, nine in Brisbane, still a chance of nine in Melbourne, even managing four in Adelaide when his team’s batting failures effectively kept him to one bowling innings.

But watching a sequence of the best at their best, the marvels don’t become less marvellous. Bumrah’s fourth day in Melbourne, where for a few hours he turned the Test match India’s way from seemingly nowhere, was seeing someone at the very top of their game. Perhaps that’s what watching Brian Lara bat in 1994 might have felt like.

It’s impossible to talk about Bumrah without marvelling again at his action; approaching the wicket at walking pace, arms working stiffly up and down like a man drowning kittens in a bucket, he explodes into a biomechanical miracle, bones transforming to liquid as he whiplashes the ball away at unfathomable pace and power.

Then comes the result, a ball that crashes on to the seam so furiously that it can jag in either direction. Whether or not he knows, nobody else does. Through his first three of what absurdly became nine spells on the day, the fact that he only had one wicket felt like it should be referred to The Hague. He was too good for other players and too good for himself, beating the edge like a looped replay.

The wicket he did take was a jaw-dropper. Sam Konstas, after his jumping and japing in the first innings, might as well have not been there. There was no scoop shot equal to this, as it ragged from outside the off stump like an off break, so violently that it took out leg stump. Konstas was doing the right thing with a forward defence that would have covered any normal inward movement. Bumrah doesn’t do normal.

One over to Marnus Labuschagne in the next spell beat the edge four balls out of six, one moment threatening the shoulder of the bat, another thudding the batter in the crotch. Next up he almost had Labuschagne lbw, saved on replay by umpire’s call. Once Mohammed Siraj created an opening with two wickets, back came Bumrah to get Travis Head after consecutive tons, Mitchell Marsh the same over with a horrible steepler that clipped the bat shoulder. Then he bowled the in-form Alex Carey in the next over with a subtler left-hander’s version of the Konstas ball.

View image in fullscreen Jasprit Bumrah celebrates with teammates after dismissing Mitch Marsh. Photograph: William West/AFP/Getty Images

The experience was electric, the MCG rocking with noise as Carey’s bails scattered. The smallest crowd of the Test was still over 40,000. Australia were suddenly in danger, six down and 196 in front. So big was the moment that Labuschagne refused singles to shield a No 8 bat who had made 49 in the first innings. Such was Bumrah’s momentum that Labuschagne and Pat Cummins couldn’t chance letting him keep it going.

With application, they survived it. Mostly in short bursts, Bumrah bowled nine spells in the day, but couldn’t send down all the overs himself. Carey was his fourth wicket but the fifth wouldn’t come, first in a long stanza against Labuschagne, then against the last pair when the storm had blown itself out. Where the specialists had struggled, Scott Boland at No 11 calmly middled his defence as Nathan Lyon’s runs hurt India. Returning for the final over of the day, the exhausted Bumrah started with a full toss, before being denied that fifth wicket by an overstep. Australia closed on 228 for nine, 333 ahead.

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Running through entire teams is almost never how bowling works. Most of it is toil, rarely reward. The luxury of hindsight lets us airbrush the interregna, conjoining great days one to another like some Victory Centipede. Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis are remembered as destroyers, yet went wicketless in 46 Test innings between them. Even the best battle the tyranny of probability.

But here we are. Australia’s lead means India’s chances of winning are remote. But the tourists’ chances were absolutely nowhere before Bumrah began his rampage. During that spell he became the first bowler to reach 200 Test wickets with an average under 20. In this series alone he has 29 wickets at 12.75. Only 13 visiting bowlers have taken more on a tour of Australia, and 12 of those played a fifth or sixth Test to Bumrah’s four.

He will play a fifth in Sydney, unless his arm falls off from overuse. Five wickets there would make him second on that list. A 10-wicket match – the one bowling feat to so far elude him – would take him top. That is a lot to ask of one player, but in this series India have kept asking it. So far, even when others have not gone with him, Bumrah has kept on delivering.

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