LUCKNOW: When Brian Lara cricket, the ubiquitous 90s video game, first made its way across the market, cheat codes were dime-a-dozen. Wanted the fielders to never take a catch? 'Butterfingers' did the trick. The stumps to never fall? One just had to enter 'Solidoak'. Batters to play like Don Bradman? 'Superman' took care of it.
For whatever reason, there was never any cheat code for bowlers. If anybody were to reverse engineer the game today, perhaps they could create one. 'Justbumrah' or 'Forshami' ought to do it.
Mohammed Shami and Jasprit Bumrah — two of the world's premier pacers — used the brown surface as a canvas to stamp their authority over the defending world champions England. And it was a privilege for the nearly 50,000 who were packed into the Ekana Stadium to watch their first-ever World Cup game featuring India. If you have ever watched Indian cricket in India, the loudest cheers and chants are always reserved for the batters, the alphas of the sport. If 'Sachinnnnnn, Sachinnnnnn' was the soundtrack of the 90s, 'Kohliiiii, Kohliiiii', is the most common mood music these days.
There was a small course-correction under the Sunday night lights. To be inside the Stadium when both Shami and Bumrah were bowling their first spells was to be caught up in a mosh pit. A signal from one of the smartwatches summed up the atmosphere. "Loud," it read. "Repeated, long-term exposure to sounds above 80dB can lead to permanent damage."
Pffft. The alarm may have as well been ignored because it was that kind of night as England crumbled on another chastening night for Jos Buttler & Co. The winning margin of 100 runs doesn't even begin to convey the true picture of the stranglehold the bowlers had on the opposition.
Chasing 230, the visitors, who continued to prop up the table after their fourth loss in a row, had made a good start, under the circumstances; 0/30 in 4.4 overs. What followed next was like watching high-class cinema in 4D.
Even when the pitch is not conducive to pace bowling, they often take it out of the equation. While both of them are different bowlers, they always challenge both the edges as well as the pads. This always keeps them in business. In the fifth over, Bumrah was in business. Dawid Malan had played a few attractive shots but the cut shot is fraught with danger on these kinds of surfaces. Because of the lack of bounce, the 'played on' dismissal is always in play. That's what happened when the southpaw tried to cut a Bumrah delivery from a fifth stump line.
If there was lift-off after that first wicket, one ball later, there was delirium. On a turning, gripping surface, Joe Root was always going to be the big wicket. And Bumrah produced a fuller delivery and beat the No. 3 for pace. Root was looking to hit it through mid-wicket but the body wasn't willing to move an inch.
Following the two wickets, he bowled a maiden to Jonny Bairstow, his fourth of the World Cup. If that was the entree, the dessert was worthy of a Michelin star dish. If India had a couple of capable bowlers in the top five, the truth is Shami would be an automatic starter. It was not his fault that he was out of the side for the first four games. If in Dharamsala, Shami showed his worth at the death, Lucknow saw a different facet to his game; the first-change option.
Shami's seam presentation means he can skin a batter multiple ways before the dismissal. It was the kind of dismissal that wouldn't have been out of place in a Test match. After playing with the angle from around the stumps, Shami got one to skid off the strip to rearrange Ben Stokes' stumps. The left-hander's agricultural swipe got the treatment it deserved. His next ball saw another played on as another batter tried to cut an in-dipper from length.
4/9 in 4.3 overs. Game, set, match. The rest of the evening was academic but there was enough time for Kuldeep Yadav to produce a party piece that almost rivalled the wicket of Babar Azam from the 2019 World Cup. The spinner got one to dip sharply around the fifth stump line before curving back into breach through Buttler's defences via a slight deflection of his pads.
Played: six. Won: six. And enjoying the view from up top. They next go to the venue where they have the happiest memory of the 21st century. Play like this and they will create a memory worthy enough to rival the one they created at the Wankhede in 2011.
Brief scores: India 229/9 in 50 ovs (Sharma 87; Willey 3/45) bt England 129 in 34.5 ovs (Livingstone 27; Shami 4/22; Bumrah 3/32)
