Sydney Test: Australia’s ‘Fast Bowlers’ Cartel’ cuts India to the quick

Australia's Josh Hazlewood, centre, celebrates with teammates after taking the wicket of India's Rishabh Pant (not pictured) during day three of the third cricket Test match between Australia and India at the Sydney Cricket Ground. Picture: David Gray/AFP

A cartel, and I quote with the full authority of Wikipedia behind me, is “a group of independent market participants who collude with each other in order to improve their profits and dominate the market”.

Normally such groups are disinclined to draw attention to their activities; Australia’s pace bowlers hold no such reservations.

The nomenclature “Fast Bowlers’ Cartel” started around fifteen years ago, a joke to reflect their self-perception as a discrete unit, a team within a team, then led by Glenn McGrath. The name has been formalised in their WhatsApp group; at the Sydney Cricket Ground yesterday, it was veritably etched into the turf.

Pat Cummins, Josh Hazlewood and Mitchell Starc took seven wickets between them. They gave away barely two runs an over. They hurt India’s batsmen: Rishabh Pant, Ravi Jadeja, Cheteshwar Pujara and Ajinkya Rahane all sustained painful blows to the arms, hands and upper bodies.

What the Cartel could not complete with the ball, they concluded in the field. Each of Hazlewood and Cummins executed a run out. With Hazlewood having completed a return catch, and their young protege Cameron Green a gully catch, it was enough to provoke an antitrust suit. India’s surrender of their last six wickets for 49 and concession of a 94-run first-innings deficit left them uncomfortably exposed to the market’s shift.

Punishing

Of bowlers we expect wickets, so let’s begin with those run outs, punishing Indian errors. Before lunch, Hanuma Vihari clipped Nathan Lyon firmly to mid-off, and had a right to expect that Hazlewood, who had just completed a seven-over spell, would be slow to swoop or at least merely content to stop.

In fact, Hazlewood dived to his right, was favoured by the bounce, and hit the stumps direct with a slick underarm, finding Vihari a metre out, barely in the frame. It was like a ruckman doing his own roving.

In the afternoon, Jadeja pushed wide of mid-off, and called a legitimate single, but Ashwin first hesitated then rather loafed between wickets and failed to dive. Quickly summing up the danger end, Cummins delivered a flat throw to the striker’s stumps, where Ashwin, again, was comfortably short — or, if you prefer, uncomfortably short.

India's Ravindra Jadeja holds his hand after he was hit by the ball. Picture: David Gray/AFP

Time was when fast bowlers tenanted outfields only, like cattle sent to graze the fields peacefully, to get their breath, chew their cud. India’s still rather do — on the first day, Jasprit Bumrah squandered an opportunity to run Will Pucovski out with a clumsy fall and poor throw.

But the Australians are as sharp in the ring as anyone in their ranks. It was Hazlewood whose alert fielding delivered them Virat Kohli against the run of play in Adelaide; it was Cummins whose brilliant trap, dive and throw caught Pujara short in Adelaide two years ago.

The run outs, and the air of slight chaos in the Indian running all day, testified to the exacting control the pace bowlers exerted.

The one wicket that eluded the Cartel all day followed from Jadeja’s desire to shelter Jasprit Bumrah from Starc, and Bumrah’s failure to back up. Marnus Labuschagne’s chase, stoop and throw from square leg landed a direct hit on the non-striker’s stumps.

The bowling was more to be expected, especially after the First Test rout. There is nothing so obscure about the Cartel’s methods: pace, accuracy, fierce discipline, irreproachable fitness. To this may be added physical threat. ‘Never let the opposition forget that cricket is played with a hard ball,’ said England’s wonderfully saturnine John Snow. Pant and Jadeja, who did not field in Australia’s second innings, will need no reminding.

Indian batsman Cheteshwar Pujara ducks to avoid bouncer off Australian paceman Mitchell Starc. Picture: Saeed Khan/AFP

It was one of those days of Test cricket where seemingly crucial phase followed seemingly crucial phase, without completely resolving but delivering cumulatively. Pujara loomed as Australia’s main obstacle, but they went round rather than through him, conscious they could always come back, for India’s resilient number three never threatened to take the game away, apart from one over of Lyon’s from which he took 11.

Driven deeper into introspection by the early fall of Rahane, he had become like a stylite by the time he reached what was his slowest Test half-century. He managed only 10 singles in 176 deliveries.

Without Kohli, in fact, the Indian middle order looked here to be a little lacking in initiative: Rohit Sharma might have better deployed at number five. Pant revived the scoring rate either side of lunch, but looked vulnerable when the bowlers went round the wicket, and decidedly shaky after his knock on the elbow. Only the coming of India’s perishable tail stirred Jadeja to aggression.

Scoring rates after tea then registered the shifting ascendancy. The Australians moved through their second innings at better than 3.5 an over — the swiftest progress by either side this summer. And as their lead neared 200, the cartel recuperated ahead of a further push for market dominance today.