Manoj Prabhakar has reckoned that adjusting length is the toughest part of bowling in Australia and the length on Australian pitches is different from that of Indian pitches. He added that bowlers coming from injuries are fearful of reinjuring themselves, which he feels is the case with Bumrah.
Indian bowlers are struggling to find their length on the Australian pitches and the Aussie batsmen are taking full advantage of this by smashing them all over the ground, totaling 350+ scores in both the ODIs so far. This has resulted in Indian bowlers getting lots of heat from critics for their display performances, with even captain Virat Kohli admitting that their bowling has been ‘ineffective’.
Former India pacer Manoj Prabhakar reckoned that the Indian bowlers are facing the problem of adjusting their lengths, which even he stumbled upon while touring Down Under.
“Adjusting to the length is the toughest part in Australia. When I toured there, I realized that some of my deliveries that would hit the stumps in India would go over the stumps in Australia. So, I had to adjust the length a bit. I quickly adjusted to it,” Prabhakar said as quoted by TOI.
Especially Jasprit Bumrah, who had an impressive outing for Mumbai Indians in IPL 2020, has been in the spotlight for having performed poorly. Bumrah suffered a lower back injury in 2019 that forced him to miss most of the second half of last year and since returning this January, he has played eight matches and has bagged just three wickets, not the kind of performance expected from the ace Indian pacer.
The right-arm pace bowler has not just failed to pick enough wickets in the ODIs, he has also leaked more runs in the two ODIs, returning with the figures of 1/73 and 1/79. His failure can also be attributed to the fact that Australian batsmen are not taking undue risks against him. However, Prabhakar suggested that Bumrah could be fearful of not reinjuring himself again.
“He has come back from an injury. Sometimes it happens that when you are coming back from injury, you have fear and you are careful. I don’t know if that is the case with him, but with bowlers returning from an injury that can happen. It happened to me. It took me a year to get back to top form. Once a bowler gets over that injury fear, he gets back to top form,” he said.
