After cleaning up India for 217, New Zealand got off to a fantastic start in the second innings thanks to openers Devon Conway and Tom Latham. They added 70 runs for the first wicket before Latham was picked up by Ravichandran Ashwin. Conway, however, went on to complete his half-century before being sent back to the pavilion by Ishant Sharma.
India’s bowling seemed lackluster as they struggled to make any dent with the new ball. Explaining the problem, Simon Doull mentioned that Bumrah and co aren’t ‘genuine swing bowlers’ and given their dependence on seam-movement, they failed to outsmart the opposition.
Neither Bumrah nor Ishant could threaten the opposition with their pace or swing with the new ball. While Mohammad Shami did look promising as the first change from captain Kohli, he was unlucky on several occasions and couldn’t pick up a wicket.
Doull told Cricbuzz that he expects more seam movement from the likes of Bumrah and Shami who failed to bowl consistently on Day 3. “They are not genuine swing bowlers. We know Jasprit Bumrah can swing the ball, Ishant is more of a swing bowler nowadays, coming round-the-wicket he has that angled wrist with which he takes the ball away from the left-handers, into the right-handers.
Mohammed Shami has never really been a genuine swing bowler and he’s a seam bowler … That’s why they weren’t swinging the ball much. I did, however, expected the ball to seam a lot more. Shami and Bumrah at times found it but they probably weren’t just consistent enough much like New Zealand weren’t yesterday morning,” Doull told Cricbuzz.
However, Simon Doull didn’t buy into the argument of Indian bowlers looking off-form because of the lack of match-practice. He mentioned that this logic was probably due to ‘overthinking’ matters.
To elucidate his point, the former Kiwi cricketer cited the example of New Zealand who went into the first Test against England at Lord’s with no match-practice either. Much like India, they also relied on intra-squad matches, trainings and practices and that pretty much worked in their favour.
“Tim Southee bowled beautifully and Devon Conway came off ten days of the net session into a double hundred at Lord’s. And I thought India would be exactly the same,” Doull added.
He also concluded by saying that he’s confident that Indian bowlers bowled enough deliveries in the last 10-12 days since arriving in Southampton and they were ready to take on the challenge in the final.
