Edgbaston: England pace bowler James Anderson has said that his compatriot Stuart Broad was “pretty unlucky” in that he leaked 35 runs in a over bowled to India captain for the rescheduled fifth Test, Jasprit Bumrah on Saturday.
The 39-year-old Anderson added that on another day those top edges would have gone straight into the hands of the fielder, but as luck would have it, India crossed the 400-run mark courtesy the most expensive over in the history of Test cricket.
Bumrah claimed a world record in his debut Test as captain as he scored 29 runs off a Broad over which leaked 35 runs, the most in an over in the history of Test cricket. In the process of inflicting a whirlwind carnage over Broad and England, Bumrah surpassed the previous record which was in the hands of Brian Lara, George Bailey and Keshav Maharaj at 28 runs.
Anderson, showing some sympathy to his pace bowling partner Broad, said, “On another day one of those top edges goes straight to hand. If that gets taken nobody talks about the over.
“I thought it was pretty unlucky. There’s plenty of top edges, a couple of good shots but that’s the plan (captain) Ben (Stokes) wanted Broady to go with. Broady stuck to it and on another day when the luck was with Stuart an edge probably would have gone to hand,” said Anderson.
Bumrah dispatched consistent short-of-a-length bowling from Broad for two sixes and four boundaries during the six-ball onslaught. Five wides and a single from the final ball of the over saw Broad concede 35 runs, some seven runs more than the previous record that was held jointly by Lara, Bailey and Maharaj.
Bumrah’s heroics with the bat, along with centuries from Rishabh Pant and Ravindra Jadeja, have India well placed at stumps on day two of the Test, with England slumping to 84/5 at the end of the day following an inspired spell of fast bowling from the visitors.
Bumrah did the majority of the damage with three wickets, but Mohammed Siraj got the valuable scalp of Joe Root and Mohammed Shami bowled well with the new ball.
The one saving grace for England is that in-form duo Ben Stokes and Jonny Bairstow are the not out batters overnight and Anderson believes the pair will take the attack to India’s seamers when play resumes on Sunday.
“I’ve got a fair feeling our best line of defence will be attack,” Anderson said. “The way we’ve got ourselves out of sticky situations in the last few weeks has been by trying to put pressure back on the opposition, and I don’t see this being any different. We want to score, we want to move the game forward, and that’s what we’ll try and do.”
–IANS