BGT 2024-25 - A contest headlined by two pace attacks

The Border Gavaskar Trophy 2024/25 was one of the most eagerly anticipated series of the cricketing calendar and the five Tests did live up to the billing. It was significant as it will most likely to be the last time some of the greatest names that enriched these contests would come face to face. The added context of a spot in the WTC final further raised the stakes. Though it would have been the likes of Virat Kohli and Steven Smith that would have headlined the commercial prospects, it was indeed a contest on the field between two pace bowling attacks led by two of the greatest contemporary names of the trade - Jasprit Bumrah and Pat Cummins that dominated the series.

The new batch of Kookaburra ball with a more pronounced seam and extra layer of lacquer have brought bowlers into the contest more often in recent summers in Australia. The pitches in this series witnessed more grass on tracks than we are used to seeing Down Under and these two factors made two very good seam bowling attacks more lethal. Batters played false shots to 25.1% of the deliveries from seamers in the series - one in four deliveries - making it the toughest series for batters in Australia since 2006/07, the period from which we have such data available. In terms of batting average for top seven (31.43), it was the second lowest in a series in the same period after 27.61 in the 2018/19 Border Gavaskar trophy when the home team were bereft of three of their first choice batters.

Highest false shot % vs pace in a series in Australia since 2006/07

In a series where fast bowlers dictated terms, it was eventually down to the depth and experience of the two seam attacks that clinched the deal. Cummins had Mitchell Starc in his arsenal with the likes of Josh Hazlewood and Scott Boland to follow up while India, despite Bumrah's great run, had little support act once the ball got older and had lesser assistance of the wicket. Australia's change seamers bagged 32 wickets at 21.96, Boland picking 21 of those at 13.19, while the same numbers for India were 20 wickets at 36.10.

It was here India made baffling selection calls which were questioned multiple times as the series progressed. India picked the combination of three seamers, an uncapped seam bowling all-rounder and a finger spinner throughout the five Tests. Once the management found more trust in Nitish Kumar Reddy's batting abilities, they added a second finger spinner in the last two Tests, who eventually ended up playing a more prominent role with the bat instead. The tracks had little to offer for finger spinners and the series saw Nathan Lyon having his least workload in a series outside of his debut calendar year. Spinners bowled an average of 51 overs across the five Tests, the lowest in a series of at least three Tests in Australia since 2006/07 and only drew a false shot once in ten balls compared to one in four by the fast bowling counterparts. It led India effectively playing three-men attacks as the series wore on.

Change seamers in the series

As it seemed, India picked an attack for the new ball, and it played out exactly the same way and it was only the mastery of Bumrah that kept them in the series longer than it should have. The seamers from both teams have had eerily similar numbers with the first new ball (overs 1 to 30) with Bumrah having numbers out of this world. It was his new ball burst in Perth where he bagged five top order wickets across two innings that paved for India's only win of the series. Australia's top order was always under siege against Bumrah and Usman Khawaja admitted as much post the series. Mohammed Siraj picked as many wickets with the new ball as Starc and Cummins at a marginally better average and strike rate while Akash Deep was unlucky to end with just two wickets at 48.00 despite drawing more false shots in this phase than anyone bar Bumrah.

The story began to diverge once the ball got older and the better know how of the conditions and experience of dealing with situations in general of the bowlers from the home team began to show and the numbers bear it out. With the older ball (overs 31 to 80), the seamers from the home team averaged 16.88 and struck every 34.9 balls to 30.31 and 51.4 respectively from the visitors. Cummins matched Bumrah in terms of average in this phase but picked five extra wickets at a superior strike rate. But the key differentiator in this phase was Boland who picked 12 wickets at 8.33 and drew a false response every third ball from Indian batters. Siraj and Harshit Rana averaged north of 40 as well leaked runs while Akash Deep was unlucky not to pick a single wicket in this phase despite drawing more false shots than anyone else except Boland in this period of play (in fact he's yet to pick a wicket with a ball aged 30+ overs in his seven-Test old career).

Seam bowlers across phases in BGT 2024/25

The Australian batters, especially Travis Head who ended up as the leading run getter of the series, also did not make life easy for India's bowlers. Australia attacked more than 50% of the balls in this phase and left alone less than half of what the Indian batters did. Head smashed 190 runs at a strike rate of 103.82 between overs 31 and 80 and his knocks proved to be the difference in both Adelaide and Brisbane. Australia got to over 400+ totals in the first innings of both those matches and had India playing catch up for the rest of the game. It enabled them to ply more attacking fielders when India batted and on tracks which put bowlers in play often, those extra catchers came in handy. India, on the other hand, when put to bat first made scores of 150, 180, and 185, the latter two from positions of 69/1 and 57/2 against the first new ball.

India required more reinforcements in the pace department to back up their efforts with the new ball to make inroads to the fragile Australian batting lineup, but their confusing selection calls pulled them down. The Indian teams under Ravi Shastri and Rahul Dravid too played similar bowling combinations more often than not as the ones India did this series. But the key difference being the former having a much more rounded three men seam attack and more serviceable bowling options in the all-rounders Hardik Pandya and Shardul Thakur, the latter with 200+ wickets in domestic first class cricket.

The question for Gautam Gambhir was whether he was willing to sacrifice the additional batting depth at #8 for a more rounded seam attack and bite the bullet with a longer tail. With India's top order batters not at their best form with the bat, it was not a hedge that Gambhir was willing to take. Under Shastri and Dravid, India did play four specialist seamers (excluding the ones where Hardik and Shardul featured as the fourth seamer) on five occasions and returned with a win rate of 60% highlighting there is merit in that line of thinking. India picked up 20 opposition wickets only twice in the five Tests and the eventual scoreline was a true reflection of their inability to dismiss the opposition twice, a pre-requisite for winning in the longest format.

Siraj has not had desired control of the old ball as a Mohammed Shami while the other seamers lacked wherewithal in these parts of the world once the new ball stopped doing things. Nitish Reddy, the designated fourth seamer of the attack, neither had the experience nor the attributes to succeed Down Under and was taken to task by the Australian middle and lower order. This meant Bumrah had to be called upon time and again which eventually led him to breaking down during the series decider in Sydney and India down without their best bowler for the final act on a spiteful wicket.

Bowlers with first new ball (overs 1-30)

Bowlers with old ball (overs 31-80)

Bumrah the standout

Any mention of the series cannot be complete without dwelling on Bumrah's gargantuan efforts and it turned out to be one of the greatest solo acts in a series defeat for a team in the 21st century. Bumrah ended the series with 32 scalps at 13.06 and a wicket every 28.3 balls which happens to be the most by an Indian bowler in an away series and the joint most by an Indian seamer ever. He was equally effective across phases picking 16 wickets at 11.12 with the first new ball, nine wickets at 16.44 with the old ball and seven wickets at 13.14 with the second new ball. Unfortunately for him there was little backing from the rest of the seam attack who aggregated 40 wickets between them at 34.82.

26 of these 32 wickets were of Australia's top seven who cumulatively averaged 12.26 against Bumrah. Among the home team's top seven batters, only Sam Konstas managed to average above 21 against him and he was the only batter apart from wicketkeeper Alex Carey not to fall to Bumrah at least thrice in the series. The most comparable recent performance by a bowler against an opposition top order was Courtney Walsh's efforts in the English summer of 2000 where he had 28 wickets from England's top seven at 10.28, at the age of 38. Like Bumrah in 2024/25, Walsh found little help from rest of the attack barring Curtly Ambrose and succumbed to a 3-1 defeat much like India this series.

Bumrah H2H vs Australia batters