Jasprit Bumrah has Australia’s number. It might be up on Boxing Day

Brisbane: When Jasprit Bumrah peers down from the top of his mark at the MCG on Boxing Day, he will like what he sees.

For all the Australian justifications about batting aggressively to set a target on the final day of the rain-ruined Gabba Test, its proceedings only added to the sense that Bumrah is the defining figure in this series. Beat him, and beat India.

Usman Khawaja is bowled by Jasprit Bumrah at the Gabba.Credit: Getty Images

Commissioned to go for runs in the hope of setting a target, the harried Australian top order could have been forgiven for wondering whether the gambit had been worth it.

Usman Khawaja was opened up like a can of beans and bowled on his 38th birthday. Marnus Labuschagne flashed and edged behind. And becalmed by Bumrah for most of his first 24 balls, Nathan McSweeney lashed at an Akash Deep delivery he could barely reach and snicked his 25th to wicketkeeper Rishabh Pant.

Pat Cummins was somewhat equivocal about McSweeney’s place in the team when asked about him a few hours later. Either way, Bumrah’s burst was one of a few reasons why India will reach Melbourne feeling like they dodged a bullet in Brisbane and fired one or two of their own as the match petered out.

After three games of the series, Bumrah has 21 wickets at a staggering price of 10.9 runs each. He’s cutting through the Australian batting order with a level of brutality usually associated with the days of uncovered pitches and matchstick bats in the early part of the 20th century.

As a consequence, Khawaja, McSweeney and Labuschagne have 217 runs between them for the series at a collective average of 14.47. While they have twice managed to weather enough balls to give Travis Head a stage on which to perform his batting rock operas, Australia are now only one more Perth-style collapse from leaving the Border-Gavaskar Trophy in Indian hands for the third home series in a row.

Cummins, unsurprisingly, described the Gabba as close to the most frustrating Test match of his career. Head and Steve Smith gave the Australians a handsome first innings total despite being sent in, and they were well on the way to a huge victory with two days remaining in defiance of the rain that had already fallen.

But the loss of Josh Hazlewood for the series with a calf injury, followed by India’s wriggle past the follow-on mark, were a pair of major blows to the hosts. They now know this series will be a hard slog, not a runaway victory: always a likely scenario when the first Test was lost by such a yawning margin.

“We were behind the game, it’s a little victory for us,” Rohit Sharma said of India’s relieved reaction to avoiding the follow-on. “We’ve ended up in a draw with Australia being ahead in the game, but they didn’t manage to get the results. It’s a little victory.”

Further troubling news came with the sight of Head stretching a quad and hobbling slightly between wickets when he batted. After initial team denials that anything was wrong with him, Cummins conceded there was a niggle present. Australia simply cannot afford it to get any worse than that.

To win the series from here, without Hazlewood and with Bumrah still circling, will require plenty of fortitude from the Australians. They do not have a particularly good record at the back end of long series, sharing the traits of earlier generations of Australian sides to want to land the first punch.

Cummins and Starc will remember, painfully, how a 1-0 advantage in 2020-21 was squandered in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. That series led to questions about whether Australia should have rotated their bowlers more. Scott Boland then emerged as a Test-class fourth seamer in the squad, but neither he nor the aforementioned duo are getting any younger.

More recently, Australia squandered a 2-0 lead in the Ashes in England, needing rain in Manchester to retain the urn before losing at the Oval to leave the contest tied.

Cricketing mortality has now cast a shadow over the series: the retirement of Ravichandran Ashwin after he was left out of two of the first three Test matches is a reminder that Australia, too, have some difficult conversations coming up.

Jasprit Bumrah in delivery stride.Credit: Getty Images

They will not be made any easier should Bumrah maintain his stranglehold on the Australian top three, of whom Khawaja is the oldest member.

“I think that one you can dismiss,” Cummins said of day five’s rush of wickets. “Really proud of everyone going out there and trying to win the Test match. We’re big on buying into a game plan and a style, and they went out there with intent.

“A day-five wicket as well is really tricky, so they were right up against it, but today I wouldn’t look into it too much. It was more about trying to get ourselves to a number rather than trying to preserve wickets.”

Typically for Cummins, those were well-ordered and logical thoughts. But there is little ordered or logical about the Bumrah experience, so well does he scramble a batter’s mind. Bumrah has Australia’s number, and the Brisbane monsoons have ensured he will go to Melbourne and Sydney with the chance to have the last word in this series.