SCG Test: What would India do without Jasprit Bumrah? Visitors learn answer in series-defining day

It was the question we had asked all series, from Perth until the final day in Sydney: What would India do without Jasprit Bumrah? In a cruel twist for the visitors, we got our answer when they needed him most: in the thrilling finale to one of the greatest-ever series on Australian soil. Bumrah batted on the final day, but didn’t take the field to bowl after he was whisked away by ambulance escort for scans on a sore back on Saturday. There are whispers the back issue, something he had major surgery on two years ago, could be worse than the back spasms first reported. It’s ramifications at the Sydney Cricket Ground on Sunday were fierce. India, without Bumrah, needed to take 10 wickets worth less than 162 runs. Their back-up bowlers ended up a big puddle of water in the middle of the SCG. They just weren’t able to perform. Everything they had done in this series had been shaped around when and to who Bumrah was bowling. They looked rudderless in their chase of the wickets that would have snatched the trophy out of Australian hands. Mohammed Siraj and Prishadh Krishna — who was thrown into the deep end in this final Test — sprayed balls wide early and were rattled by the down-the-wicket approach of Sam Konstas and even the more aggressive approach of Usman Khawaja. They bowled brave 10-over spells, but only because there was little trust in anyone beyond medium-pacer Nitish Kumar Reddy. Australia had taken their wickets by landing ball after ball on a handkerchief at a five-metre length. Scott Boland and captain Pat Cummins were relentless. The wicket was doing more than enough off the seam to find a good length and let the ball do the work. India just tried too hard to force things without their main man and when they turned to short balls after lunch, they had completely lost their way. Boland and Cummins took offence to being driven on that wicket and India should have too. They let Beau Webster get comfortable early and rest on his front foot. It just shows how effective Bumrah has been in this series. The biggest shame about him not bowling in this final innings is that it will blot the record books. He was named player-of-the-series and finished with 32 wickets, but it might have been even more if he didn’t go down injured. It was the equal eighth-most wickets taken by a touring bowler in Australia, but one more innings would have had him climbing up those rankings. Maurice Tate’s all-time record, set in the 1924 Ashes series, was six wickets away, but second-place — Sid Barnes’ 1911-1912 tour — was just two wickets beyond Bumrah. There was talk it is the best an overseas bowler has ever bowled in Australia. Now there’s talk it’s the greatest anyone has ever bowled here.