India vs Australia: No overplaying Jasprit Bumrah factor, says Aaron Finch

India vs Australia: Terming India’s Jasprit Bumrah a fantastic bowler, Australia captain Aaron Finch made it clear that the Bumrah factor should not be overplayed.

One of the first questions visiting teams on a tour to India face is the challenge of playing spin. For a change, and in a reflection on the quality of India’s pace attack, Australia captain Aaron Finch spent most of the time answering questions on the India seamers in his first interaction with reporters on arrival at the Wankhede Stadium on Friday. It was in contrast to earlier times when the Australia captain would talk of his own pace attack rather than the India pace unit. With Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood in their ranks and Kane Richardson for support, the visitors also boast of a potent pace arsenal.

Indian captain Virat Kohli has a heated exchange with Australia's skipper Aaron Finch as J Bumrah looks on, during the 3rd ODI cricket match in Ranchi, Friday, March 8, 2019 (File Photo) (PTI)

Despite the absence of some frontline bowlers, the India attack still packs a punch with a fit-again Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Shami coming from a stellar 2019, Navdeep Saini shaping up well and Shardul Thakur fitting in nicely when needed.

In 21 ODIs in the past 12 months, Shami has taken 42 wickets and Bumrah has 25 in 14 matches.

Asked whether Australia look at India’s pace attack as the main threat, Finch said, “Both (pace and spin). You have different challenges. You have guys like Bumrah who can move the ball, Bhuvi (Bhuvneshwar Kumar, missing the series due to injury) who could swing it both ways. You have the consistency of (Ravindra) Jadeja, (Yuzvendra) Chahal, Kuldeep (Yadav), so you can’t take either of the challenges lightly. You have to be prepared with your game plan mentally to take and challenge them on. That will be up to the individual to figure out what’s the best way to go about it. At the end of the day, its international cricket, you can’t take anything lightly, you can’t put more emphasis on one than the other, otherwise you can find yourself coming up pretty short.”

After the T20 matches against Sri Lanka, Australia will be Bumrah’s second tournament since recovering from a lower back stress fracture.

Finch advised his batsmen not to overplay the Bumrah factor in their minds. “He (Bumrah) is obviously a fantastic bowler and someone who when you are not playing against him, you love watching him bowl. He is fast and aggressive and his execution is pretty spot on. More and more guys face him, the more exposure you get, the more you start to understand how he bowls.

“So, it is important that we don’t overplay that too much. It is more about focusing on what we as a batting unit can, and each player has different strengths and weaknesses. So, doing what we have to do for mentally being prepared for that challenge,” said Finch ahead of the opening match on January 14.

For Australia, there is interest around Marnus Labuschagne. He is yet to play limited-overs cricket but his impact on red-ball cricket has been massive and the Australia selectors are hoping he can replicate the success in white-ball cricket. The series is being hyped as a Labuschagne versus Bumrah contest. “Yes that (contest) is going to be exciting,” said Finch.

“The improvement we have seen in Marnus’s game over the last 12 months has been huge and that has reflected in his scores and the impact that he is having in Test matches. If you look at his domestic ODI record, it is very good, he has batted in the top four for Queensland and the way that our ODI competition is being structured for the last few years…there can be similar wickets to sub-continents type of wickets where they are slower and spin a bit and for him to be averaging 40 in domestic cricket is brilliant and hopefully he can bring that from the Test series.

“He takes enough time to refresh and recharge his batteries because playing here can be tough. He will be ready to go. He is an exciting player who just keeps getting the job done all the time which is really important for us and for him.”

Finch’s moment as captain of the ODI team was how he guided his team to victory over India last March. Australia were trailing 2-0 and then staged a brilliant comeback to win the last three games to take the series.

“We obviously won here the last time, we came 3-2, we hope to back that performance and start off really well in Mumbai is important to us,” said Finch.

The 33-year-old said the key to doing well in India was to keep chipping away at the opposition even when things were not going your way. “In India, you have to be really disciplined with the basics. A lot of time you can get caught up in worrying about things that aren’t all that relevant. At the end of the day, all you have to do is stick to the basics for a long time. We have seen that in these conditions. When you perform consistently, it’s about your top three or four batters going out there and getting big scores. The pleasing thing from the last tour is how we were able to come back from 0-2 down to win 3-2. That made a really big statement. Once you get behind in the series, you don’t give up; you keep chipping in one game at a time and try to get back to the series bit by bit. And you start that by sticking to the basics.”

After opening the match in Mumbai, the teams will play at Rajkot on January 17 and Bengaluru on January 19.