Former India player turned commentator Sanjay Manjrekar has blamed Team India’s bowling woes in the second Test against South Africa on their seamers’ line of bowling. Manjrekar observed that Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Shami and Shardul Thakur bowled too straight which not only didn’t allow them to take wickets but also leaked runs.
However, India lost the Test by seven wickets within four days, and the series is now levelled at 1-1. South Africa captain Dean Elgar (96*) took the team to a victory as well. And, Manjrekar wants the Indian pacers to adopt the situation, including the outside-off-stump line bowling as well.
After the game, Manjrekar told ESPNcricinfo: “If you noticed today, every ball was on the stumps. There’s a line that you can bowl on South African pitches, especially when you’ve got only 240 runs to defend which is outside the off-stump. That creates a different challenge to the batter because he’s then thinking, ‘Should I play this one or leave that one?’ Now that challenge was taken away because everything was coming into the stumps, and if the ball didn’t do much, there were runs to be had.”
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He continued: “Look at the economy rates of all the seam bowlers. So when the ball didn’t kick or jag around – Bumrah’s ball didn’t jag around at all in this Test match, Shami not as much only, Shardul was getting the ball to deviate off the pitch – so that meant… the ball was coming onto the stumps, all they had to do was put bat to ball…”
Manjrekar said a fourth-stump line requires more patience, but it could be both frugal and wicket-taking.
“When there’s no response from the pitch, that line outside the off-stump has great advantage because you force the batters to leave (straight) balls and those become dot balls, and there’ll be some balls that’ll come back, and they’ll have to play. That’s the line that’ll get you wickets. It needs a little bit of patience, but more importantly, you don’t leak runs too much,” Sanjay Manjrekar again shared.
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The former player also shared that off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin wasn’t a ‘first-choice’ bowler as his conservative bowling on a pace-friendly track was a ‘big story’ as well.
“That’s something captains are OK with because the last thing they want, especially with bowlers who are not first-choice, Ashwin clearly we saw as the match went along, wasn’t a first choice bowler, so that kind of bowler needs a little bit of protection. Tactically, I think, Rahul did what most new captains would do. He would go with bowlers who have the pedigree, so there was a lot of Bumrah, Shami; there was a bit of Shardul. The big story as well (is) about what this team thinks of Ravichandran Ashwin, the way he was used. So tactically, with bowling changes, I don’t have any issues,” Sanjay Manjrekar conlcuded.
