TimesofIndia.com in Birmingham: Weeks before boarding the flight to England, Akash Deep was very excited to bowl with the Dukes ball. He was told by his senior teammate Jasprit Bumrah about how much the ball does in this part of the world and was itching to have a crack at the English batters and make the ball talk.“Jassi bhai ne bola hai ki Dukes kaafi hilta hai… kabhi daala nahi hai, but kaafi excited hoon (Jasprit Bumrah has told me how much Dukes balls move, but I have never bowled with it and I am excited),” Akash had told TimesofIndia.com before he boarded the flight.In his head, he had it all figured out. Shining red cherry, overcast conditions, and the ball dancing to his tunes. Typical English behaviour—but the 28-year-old was in for a rude shock when he arrived here. He ran into tracks as flat as the Grand Trunk Road, built by Sher Shah Suri, an Afghan warlord from Sasaram—the small town in Bihar where Akash comes from.“Mere saath dhokha ho gaya (I have been fooled),” Akash had a nice laugh with Cheteshwar Pujara after the end of Day 2 and added, “It is quite similar to the Indian surfaces and I know how to bowl on such pitches.”He surely knows a thing or two about bowling on Indian pitches, as he has tasted a lot of success for Bengal in the First-Class circuit. For him, it was about doing more of the same in an unfamiliar setting at Edgbaston, where he certainly felt at home. Four wickets in the first innings and five in the second meant the right-armer never allowed the hosts to get going and gave Shubman Gill the early inroads which were desperately needed on a pitch that was responding only when the ball was hard and new.
There wasn’t the banana swing Akash was hoping to get before coming here, but he adjusted well and quickly made precise use of his probing angles. The shrewd operator used the width of the crease to generate different paths, and one such delivery bamboozled World No. 1 batter Joe Root. Coming in with the angle and then moving away late to completely outfox the senior batter was a treat to watch and would have been replayed multiple times by Akash on his phone after the day’s play.
Poll
How excited do you think Akash Deep was to bowl with the Dukes ball?
“That was a dream delivery… top-quality player Joe Root and to dismiss him in that fashion just shows the quality of Akash, what he can do. I think he is also a guy like all of us. The more confidence you give him, almost like there’s a little bit more energy behind the ball, and hopefully that delivery he will play over on his phone tonight, and then bring a couple more of those tomorrow,” said Morkel after Day 4.The ball wasn’t new when proceedings got underway on Day 5 but had enough in it to keep Akash Deep interested. A lot of rain meant the pitch was going to respond.
He struck again—not once but twice—to break the back of England’s batting and give India an early shot at sealing a famous win at the venue where they had never crossed the line. Akash’s drill remained the same as he kept attacking the stumps and kept generating different angles by using the width of the crease. Even in non-English conditions, he looks tailor-made because of his consistent ability to keep the stumps in play. The bowling coach feels ticking the “golden rules” is crucial to succeed in England.“He is an attacking bowler that asks questions, bowling at the stumps a lot,” Morkel explained. “I think that’s one of the golden rules here in England: asking questions on the stumps. So for these sort of conditions in the UK, it suits his style. And coming back from injury and seeing him running in with high pace, it’s a nice sign for us.”With his “Jassi bhai” not playing this game due to workload management, Akash had big shoes to fill. He slipped into them with ease and made a match-winning impact with the ball. Even “Jassi bhai” will be very proud of this effort.
