Ahead of the fifth and final Test at Manchester, England batsman Dawid Malan heaped praise on Jasprit Bumrah and admitted that the Indian pace bowler’s angle at the crease and his speed make him a difficult bowler to face, saying the best way to keep him out is by getting off the strike.
Malan to IANS during an interview: “Get off the strike. I guess that will be the only way not to face him. He has obviously been fantastic. He has got a really different angle to the crease to other bowlers.”
He added, “You know he bowls 90 miles per hour when he wants and he can hit you on the head and knock your poles out as well if he wants to. So, he is a really challenging bowler to face. You know it (the best way to counter him) is about trying to minimize certain ways to get out to him. And hope it is your day and you can get on top of it. He has been fantastic so far.”
The left-handed batsman also admitted that the England batsmen did not put enough pressure on Indian bowlers and did not score enough runs in the first innings which led them to face a 157-run defeat in the fourth Test to concede Team India a 2-1 lead in the ongoing Test series.
He added, “You don't win the game in the first hour of the day. By batting for two sessions is what earns [you] the right. We as a team probably didn't do that well enough. Yes, you have to put pressure on the bowlers. You have to find ways of scoring.
There are different ways to win games. Looking back at it, India bowled fantastically well to win. We probably lost that game by not scoring enough runs in the first innings on a really good batting pitch. That put us under pressure on the last day.”
On his comeback in whites during the ongoing home series against India, the 34-year-old said: “It can be tough at times. Fortunately for myself, I see myself more as a traditional batsman. I don't think I am a massive slogger of the ball. You know when I train for my white-ball cricket, I put a lot of emphasis on the basics. If I can do the basics really well, I believe I can play white-ball cricket really well. That is my template to cricket. I work a lot on that. It has helped me so far.”
Malan signed off by saying, “The toughest challenge has been mentally going from facing 30 balls and influencing the game to have to bat for six hours and influencing the game. That is the challenge of Test cricket. That is what you need to do to become successful to score a lot of runs and not make mistakes a lot of the time. That is the biggest challenge.”
(With IANS Inputs)
