India endured a brief injury scare on Saturday when pace spearhead Jasprit Bumrah appeared to clutch his adductor muscle while bowling but bowling coach Morne Morkel assured that it was just a cramp and the pacer is “fine.”
Bumrah, who claimed an eight-wicket match haul in India’s 295-run win in the series opener, showed signs of discomfort while bowling the 81st over of Australia’s innings.
He was attended to by the team’s physio but resumed bowling immediately, completing his over and delivering three more overs later in the session.
“Firstly, with Bumrah, he’s fine; it was just this cramp. Yeah, even because after that, you know, he bowled and you got the wickets twice,” Morkel said at the post-match press conference.
The star pacer returned with figures of 4 for 61, helping India bowl out Australia for 337.
His wickets included opener Nathan McSweeney (39), Steve Smith (2), Pat Cummins (12), and Usman Khawaja (13), the last of whom he had dismissed on Friday.
India still learning pink-ball cricket: Morkel
Morne Morkel admitted that the team’s bowlers struggled with execution and length during the ongoing second Test against Australia, attributing it to their limited experience in pink-ball cricket.
India were struggling at 128 for 5 in their second innings, still trailing Australia by 29 runs at stumps on day two of the day-night Test.
Earlier centurion Travis Head (140) and Marnus Labuschagne (64) put the hosts in the driver’s seat, helping them secure a sizeable 157-run first-innings lead.
“With the pink-ball so far in this match there’s always a little something in the wicket. If you’re consistent in your area, there was the odd ball that nipped around. At the end of the day it’s having the plans and executing them in partnership for long enough,” Morkel said during the post-day press-conference.
“I think that’s what Australia has done in this Test match so far, the guys that bowled well on day one made scoring for us tough. But when a ball gets a little bit softer it can get easier to score and then you’ve got the night session to think and worry about.
“In terms of tempo, I think this team is still figuring out what is the best way to play pink-ball cricket because we don’t have a lot of experience playing the pink-ball. So it is learning but also it’s fast learning because now it’s a Test match and you’re behind the game.” Reflecting on the bowling performance, Morkel said: “If I can just draw from the first Test, our lines and lengths were exceptional and that was sort of the blueprint going into this Test series, we wanted to bring the stumps into play as much as possible.
“Last night with the ball moving around a bit, we missed that, we were slightly off the mark with that in terms of finding the right sort of length and at times we were touch wide. We allowed the guys to leave a lot of balls…that’s where you can pick up your wickets.
“I thought we came out this morning again and we sort of got more balls in the right areas more consistently. I think in partnership we bowled better but from there for this young bowling group…”.
(This story is published as part of the auto-generated syndicate wire feed.)
