A photo op with the Border-Gavaskar trophy brought two of the world’s leading fast bowlers together and over the next few days they will determine the course of the cricket.
Captaincy has usually been the domain of batters. Their workloads allow them the space to work on tactics and team management, and the division of labour is arguably a little bit easier. When you’re at the crease, you just have to worry about scoring runs. As a bowler, you’re planning your spell – R Ashwin says he sequences 25 balls at a time – you’re focused on millions of minutiae – line, length, pace, variation – it can become taxing to keep an eye on the big picture.
Bumrah, though, argues the big picture is merely the next natural step of the whole bowling process and it comes with a pretty cool perk.
“I can manage myself the best when I am the captain,” he said on the eve of the first Test in Perth, “Because I know when I am fresh, I know when I have to push myself and I know when I have to take extra responsibility. Obviously yes, there are different challenges but there are advantages as well I look at the advantages, that I understand bowling. You understand where the wicket is changing, what changes you have to make, what field sets are good at this moment. Obviously, bowlers do a lot more research and data-driven as well than batters because that is how the game is headed. So I look at the positives more than the negatives. Obviously there will be challenges and you want to be tested and you want to have challenges.”
Bumrah got into cricket because he was struck by the whole experience of fast bowling. As he has grown in stature, assuming first the senior bowler’s position and then broader leadership roles, he’s been eager to do more. It might also excite him that there haven’t been a lot of people who’ve walked the path he’s on – temporary though it may be given Rohit Sharma is expected to be joining the team ahead of the day-night practice game in Canberra at the end of November.
India’s only other fast bowling captain – Kapil Dev (played 34, won 4, lost 7, tied 1, drawn 22) – was more of an allrounder. There are others that come with the same asterisk – Shaun Pollock (P 26, W 14, L 5, D 7), Ben Stokes (P 29, W 17, L 11, D 1) and Jason Holder (P 37, W 11, L 21, D 5) being notable examples. Wasim Akram (P 25, W 12, L 8, D 5) and Courtney Walsh (P 22, W 6, L 7, D 9) didn’t just captain their respective countries, they actually got the chance to front up as fast-bowling captains against each other in 1997. There haven’t been too many occasions for that bit of history to repeat itself. In early 2024, Cummins faced off against Tim Southee’s New Zealand and now eight months later, he’s front and centre with Bumrah.
Cummins is a little further down the road in his dual roles than his opposite number. He was thrown into captaincy without doing a lot of it at domestic level but his Australian teams have found a fair bit of success, peaking in the last year when they won the World Test Championship, retained the Ashes and became ODI World Cup winners as well.
It took a while for him to get into this groove. “I’d say, yeah, maybe, you know, maybe a summer or so,” Cummins said. “So maybe a year, maybe, you know, 10 Test matches or so. I think until you’re fully comfortable [with the dual role].
“But I don’t think I’ve particularly changed too much over those 10 Test matches. Your intuition gets a little bit stronger. But, you know, even when I was really new to it, I’ve just got wonderful, you know, team-mates and staff who are helping you out. So you never really feel like you’re out there alone.
“The question is always just are you bowling too much or not enough? That’s always the question, which, yeah, again, gut feel. Speak to some other people out there, kind of come up with a decision.”
Bumrah will have the same kind of support – he made his Test debut under Virat Kohli in 2018 and spent a lot of time with Rohit Sharma right from his IPL debut in 2013 – but he’s also very keen to stand out on his own.
“So I spoke to Rohit,” Bumrah said about the captaincy, “But when we came here, then I got a little more clarity because he was also not sure about his situation at that moment. But yes, when I came here then the coach [Gautam Gambhir] and the management gave me the clarity that I will be leading in this game.
“My way is, you have to find your own way, you can’t blindly copy anyone. Obviously both of them are very successful and have gotten a lot of results. But my way, I have always never followed a copybook plan in terms of my bowling as well. If you can see that I have never followed a module, I go with my instincts. That’s how I have always played my cricket and I have a lot of faith in my instincts and gut. So that is what I go with and tactically as a bowler, you always make a lot of plans. You are well aware of what to do, what adjustments you have to make during the game of cricket. So yes, I look at it this way and I try to cover all bases as much as I can.”
Australia have played five Tests at Optus Stadium and won all five. They have a very settled side for the last three years of Cummins’ captaincy, which he found a little “weird” considering international sport tends to come with a fair bit of churn. India are facing that churn right now, starting this tour on the back of a 0-3 defeat at home to New Zealand, and having to come up with an XI with a couple of first-choice players missing.
Bumrah has been doing his bit to address this discrepancy between the two teams. “The message that I would give them is that I always believe on self-belief that is there,” he said. “Because at this moment how cricket is going, everybody has played a lot of cricket. On that day, if you believe that you are good enough, you can make an impact It doesn’t matter if you have played 100 Test matches or 50 Test matches, it depends on what is going on inside you.
“When I came here [in 2018] it was just my second tour. But in my head I wanted to make a difference and I was not looking at I am inexperienced I was looking at myself that how can I contribute And if I believe I can do it then I will make a difference So that is the message that I have passed on as well.
“A lot of players are coming to Australia for the first time, but they have a lot of first-class cricket, IPL experience, international experience behind them. The players have now learned how to handle the good days and the bad days. On the good days, it’s not as if we go too high, and similarly, we also need to learn to deal with the bad days if we have to play international cricket. Those are the conversations which we have been having. Moving forward is most important. The focus of our preparations has been to start from zero, get used to the conditions, get used to the weather, and focus on what needs to be done to succeed over here.”
Alagappan Muthu is a sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo
