Bowling Blues: India's T20 Loss Signals Post-Bumrah, Shami, Siraj Era Challenge

Summary: Australia chased a huge target of 223 runs with a five-wicket win against India in the third T20I in Guwahati. A brilliant century from Glenn Maxwell (104*) and an enterprising performance from Matthew Wade (28*).

In the ongoing T20I series between India and Australia, pitches have been consistently favorable to the batsmen in Visakhapatnam, Thiruvananthapuram and Guwahati. Chasing has proven beneficial, making it difficult for teams that bat first. However, if the bowler deviates from his line or length, the situation will inevitably become more difficult.

No matter how good a batsman is attacking the bowler, scoring his 21 runs off his last six balls is a tough task for any team. Things became more favorable for India as Matthew Wade went on strike in place of Maxwell. However, Prasidh couldn't land a single yorker and didn't seem to even try. Taking advantage of a well-placed short ball in the beginning, Wade secured the key four and put India on the defensive mode. The subsequent pitches lacked variety, consisting of three short balls, a near-ballless full toss, and an outside off stump, allowing the Australian batsmen to easily overwhelm the right-handers.

With Bumrah turning 30 next month and Shami turning 34 next year, Indian cricket is set to make a transition to bowling. Workload management remains in keeping with the needs of the times, especially considering the recent injury crisis in the Indian team. Bumrah returned from a long-term injury in August, Shami is unlikely to play another T20I. Siraj is also an all-format bowler, which makes it even more important for the current generation of fast bowlers to step up.

Interestingly, the game looked like India were firmly in control by the 16th over as Australia still needed to score 68 runs to win. However, Arshdeep Singh, who bowled the 17th over, conceded two sixes from Maxwell in the first two balls and ended up conceding 16 runs. Arshdeep's performance in this series was lackluster as he bowled at an economy rate of 10.92. Only Prasidh Krishna is worse at 13.25. The duo will lead India's pace attack in the absence of star bowlers Bumrah, Shami and Siraj, who were rested after the ODI World Cup.

The presence of veterans in the 2023 list suggests that there is a lack of pace battery that can replace the current formidable trio of Bumrah, Shami and Siraj. This potential gap becomes even more significant considering how destructive this trio was in the ODI World Cup, with Shami emerging as the top wicket-taker. There is bound to be a changing of the guard in India's bowling attack and the current situation raises big questions as to whether the emerging talent will be able to follow in the footsteps of their predecessors.