The pace attack that refuses to give in, and keeps on giving

Four years ago, Virat Kohli sat in front of the media in the basement of the SCG lamenting how his fast bowlers weren't stepping up with performances consistently. He also spoke in awe of how a young Josh Hazlewood had come into the series and shown the kind of composure and character that he as the new leader expected from his bunch of pacers. It was his first Test after taking over as captain officially - he'd led India in the opening Test in Adelaide as a stand-in. It was at the back of yet another series defeat. It was at the end of another tour to Australia where India's fast bowlers had come up short. They'd also come up against a rampaging Steve Smith and David Warner. How Kohli had summed up his pacers' plight back then makes for interesting reading now.

"You need composure and character to go out there and say, I'm tired, but I need to take two wickets for my team, so I need to bowl at the same pace as my first spell. That's where character counts. When you're tired and you're down and your team expects you to step up. We need guys stepping up with more performances like that to win Test matches. Those crucial moments after tea, at the end of a day's play, we need to strike and we haven't been able to. It's to do with wanting to bowl that second and third spell for the team and that's something we need to consistently work on, tell the guys to step up and bowl their hearts out for the team eventually," he had said.

Now, fast forward to Kohli sitting in front of the media in the basement of the MCG on Sunday (December 30, 2018). He'd just become the first Indian captain in 37 years to win a Test in Melbourne. He'd just become the first Indian to take an insurmountable lead in a series Down Under. He'd just taken his team to within one win or a draw from becoming the first-ever from India to win a series here. And he couldn't stop raving about his fast bowlers. For, they deserved to. Yes, they hadn't come up against a rampaging Steve Smith and a David Warner. But that's not on them. What they had done is, they'd shown both composure and character in copious amounts, they'd bowled with the same pace and intensity in each spell-from first to last - and they'd bowled their hearts out for their team, over and over again. Going into the third Test, they had bowled more overs than their Aussie counterparts. But still in Melbourne, they picked up their tired bodies, stepped up to the plate and won the Test for their team. They did everything their captain had yearned for when he took over, just like they've done all year long.

Kohli couldn't stop gushing when asked about their contributions for good reason. But it was when he was asked about his own contribution in chalking out the plans for the Aussie batsmen, that his bowlers have executed to cerebral precision that the Indian captain's unbridled admiration for Jasprit Bumrah & Co came through.

"To be honest, in bowlers' meeting, I usually just sit and listen. It is very important to understand what the bowlers are thinking. And then in that process you think of plan B, and you communicate that to the bowlers. That's how we operate. But the fact that the bowlers are all the time dictating those meetings is how you win Test matches away from home. At the end of the day, they are running in with the ball so they need to be confident with their fields, where they are pitching, the pace of the wicket, how they can bowl dot balls and how they can get wickets. That fact that they have taken total ownership of their skill and taken responsibility for the team is what has set them apart this calendar year. Results are there for everyone to see. It is not just talk, you know, they have put the numbers on the board," is how Kohli put it.

Ownership is quite an apt description really of how India's pace attack have operated this year. They have literally owned the Australian top-order in the Australian summer, like they did the England top-order in the English summer. They have also owned the conditions. India may have lost at Perth, but not at one point or in one spell have Bumrah, Ishant Sharma and Mohammed Shami been out-bowled or out-performed.

It was different in South Africa and in England. There the pitches had been in their favour, and often they had to just befriend the conditions and let them do the damage for them. Australia is different though. It must be said the pitches on offer during these three Tests have been far kinder to the bowlers than they generally are. But each has been different. Adelaide was two-paced, Perth too-paced and Melbourne well multi-paced. The Indian seamers though have not just adjusted to whatever challenge they've come across, they've adapted, and they've most importantly found ways to take wickets, in each spell, at each juncture. They've set up sessions for India to win. They've set up Tests for India to win.

Ishant has been the senior leader, and 90 Tests into one of the most debated careers in Indian history, he finally seems to have found his feet at this level. It's no surprise that this, his 12th year in international cricket, has by far been his best-ever. Prior to 2018, he'd only once averaged under 30 during the course of the year with the ball. This year, he's taken 41 wickets at 21.80. Now that's progress. Shami on the other hand has developed into India's enforcer, the man who you won't notice always, but the man who gets them the breakthroughs that matter. It's he who comes in and breaks partnerships and removes the big guns when the chips are down or the game is in the balance. You just have to look at how often he takes wickets towards the end of a session or right at the start of one.

Then there's of course the new leader of the attack. And it's in terms of being able to gauge and understand conditions and then to know exactly how to take wickets on them where Bumrah has been a revelation of unimaginable or never-seen-before proportions. No wonder Kohli left the most significant praise for him.

To start with, he revealed how he and the team management had gone about realizing Bumrah's potent potential with the red-ball, considering the pacer had hardly played first-class cricket leading to his Test debut in South Africa.

"I think the fact that he was showing amazing levels of energy and fitness in white ball cricket and hence he was so good because he was not giving runs with the new ball, he was getting wickets, he would come back in the death overs and not bowl one loose delivery. He was training like he wanted to play Test cricket, he was that obsessed about his fitness levels and his work ethics. So we discussed before South Africa that if we put him as a surprise package he could be lethal if he gets his lines and lengths right," Kohli revealed, adding, "The mindset he has is what separates him from anyone else in the world right now. He looks at the pitch and he doesn't think it's a hard toil on these wickets. He thinks how can I make a breakthrough for the team and your mindset separates you from the rest. He is as strong headed as I have seen anyone in the past and that's the key to his success, that's what I have seen in the past 12 months. The way he has matured in Test cricket and the areas he has bowled so quickly in his Test career I think it's a scary sign for the batsmen around the world in Test cricket."

And you know you're special when the most special batsman of the generation talks about being intimidated by your bowling, even if he is your captain.

"I mean if there is a pitch like Perth, I wouldn't want to face Jasprit Bumrah to be honest because if he gets on a roll he can really crank it up. The way he bowls is so much more different to anyone and I think he realizes that more than the batsmen and that's why he is so confident about his skills."

Four years on from that evening in Sydney, it was the Australian captain who was for a change expressing his awe for the Indian seamers. There was also some sort of a closure to Kohli's lament back then in the way he summed up his fast bowlers' achievement here.

"This victory is more special to the bowlers because they have been so tired, they bowled so many overs and even in this game they had to put in more effort because the nature of the pitch but outstanding, hats off to them. That's all I can say." Kohli was right. He didn't have to say more.