Two-man attack and too many questions

This was the kind of day Manchester rarely offers, the kind poets might imagine but locals rarely trust: powder-blue skies, a beaming sun, birdsong in the breeze. Days like this are rare here. Days like this, where India are pounded for 500-plus in an overseas Test, have become rarer still.

But it happened again. Ten years on from the last such mauling, the ghosts have returned. Not since Sydney 2015 had India conceded as many in an innings in an away Test. That was before the pace-bowling revolution, before they had depth, fitness, and the ability to keep pressure simmering across sessions.

That Sydney Test featured a 24-year-old Bhuvneshwar Kumar, undercooked after an ankle injury, struggling in his lone appearance of the series. By the end of the game, his pace was down, he found no swing, and bowled with the keeper up. Anshul Kamboj has endured a parallel arc after being jetted to Manchester and handed a debut three days later.

Kamboj has, across two days of toil, returned just one wicket while averaging 125.34 kph on his first full day on the field. His inclusion had come not just with strong endorsements from MS Dhoni and R Ashwin, but with a solid first-class record - 79 wickets at 22.88 - and a sharp showing against the England Lions. But the seamless step up that Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Siraj once made, like they'd always been equipped for Test cricket, has eluded him for now.

The dip in pace caught even Morne Morkel off guard. For, Kamboj consistently bowled above 135 in domestic cricket and seemed sharp in the nets too. "He's definitely fully fit. If he wasn't fully fit, he wouldn't be playing," India's bowling coach confirmed on Friday (July 25). "You know, if you look, I wish I could give you that answer [about Kamboj's speeds], because I would have told him then how to bowl quicker, but, you know, he arrived here, he bowled well in the nets. In the India 'A' game, he was definitely quicker, and, you know, some of the games back home, yeah, it was definitely higher pace."

The problem, though, runs deeper. Between Kamboj and Shardul Thakur, the third and fourth seamers, India got 29 overs of scattergun effort, neither tight nor threatening. As a result, the burden once again fell on Bumrah and Siraj, who have already sent down 28 and 26 overs respectively. The lack of support has not only affected the balance of the attack but also strained the core, with both bowlers visibly dropping in pace.

On Day 3, Bumrah managed just one ball above 140 kph. Compare that to Headingley and Lord's, where high-pace deliveries made up nearly 40% and 27% of his spells respectively. The over-reliance leading to fatigue also resulted in a rare loss of discipline