JOIN USIt took just 5.2 overs in India’s first innings to realise the value of having a potent pace attack even on sluggish pitches, like the 22-yard trampoline at the MA Chidambaram Stadium.
James Pattinson produced an explosive first spell 3-1-16-2 that rattled the home side before Sachin Tendulkar, Cheteshwar Pujara and Virat Kohli joined forces to calm the nerves.
Australian pacers hadn’t done anything of note in the two warm-up games at the Guru Nanak grounds, but they moved into a higher gear on the first opportunity they got to bowl in a Test match.
Apart from Peter Siddle, the other three pacers – Pattinson, Mitchell Starc and Moises Henriques – haven’t bowled in India in the longer version, but they never looked out of their place here. The Chepauk pitch certainly doesn’t offer the kind of bounce they are familiar at Perth or Brisbane, but the four-pronged pace attack restructured the approach in accordance with the pitch here.
Pattinson explained their approach. “If you bang the wicket and put some pace behind it, you can get some variable bounce. The ball was reversing quite early. As soon as we saw that it wasn’t swinging conventionally, we went cross-seam and tried to scuff one side up, which worked quite well.” he said.
Here Australian skipper Michael Clarke also deserves some credit to use Pattinson carefully on his return to Test cricket. He had broken down four times last year due to four different injuries – a foot stress fracture against India at Sydney, back strain against West Indies at Trinidad, an abdominal tear in the ODI series against England and a side strain against South Africa at Adelaide.
But bigger load awaits him and his colleagues in the coming days. Pattinson had a clear strategy in place to go through the grind. “Because it’s so tough over here as a fast bowler, it’s all about using the conditions and using the crease as much as possible. Over here, it’s about attacking the stumps, so if we can get that angle, it gives us a better chance of bowling people.”
The other important cog in the Australian pace bowling wheel will be Starc. The left-arm pacer can be handful bowling around the stumps, and he gave glimpses of his powers on the day when he beat Sachin Tendulkar and Virat Kohli a couple times for the angle while bowling from around the wicket.
Pattinson too agreed the role of Starc could be of utmost importance in the days to come. “He [Starc] is a fantastic bowler of reverse swing. The plan is to hit the stumps and go for lbws. From round the wicket, you have more chance of honing in on the stumps. He’s fantastic at going away from the right-hander.
“He’s got a lot of wickets caught behind and bowled. Whether he could have come over the wicket a bit more and changed it up a little bit … I’m not sure about that. But it was spoken about in the camp,” he added.
Cheteswhar Pujara said Indians were prepared to face the reverse swing. “In Indian conditions there was not so much (conventional) swing movements, so what they were trying was to get the ball old as early as possible to get the reverse swing. We were prepared for it.”
But it’s certainly going to be a tough time once all the four pacers get it reverse at high pace.