Akash Deep keeping it simple, with doses of Bumrah wisdom

It's when you watch the India nets from a vantage point that you truly realise how different a ball bowled at the same pace and place can be.

- HT Correspondent

MELBOURNE: The swing, the point of release, the angle - every little thing matters. At the Melbourne Cricket Ground, the nets are at a lower level than the rest of the stadium, so you can get a top-down view of the action, and that's when it all becomes that little bit clearer.

The practice pitches haven't exactly been green, rather they looked like the kind of tracks one would usually have for white-ball games. So, the bounce isn't great, at least nothing like we have seen in the Test matches so far. Still, it was enough to see Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj and Akash Deep go all out in the nets.

Cricket is supposed to be complicated but the normal rules don't seem to apply to Bumrah. Almost all the batters tend to take an additional backward step while facing him. The ball cuts in sharply, it is visibly quick and his lines constantly challenge the batters. Siraj tends to surprise batters with the odd delivery - a little quicker, a bouncer or one that does something extra off the wicket.

Now, between them sits Akash Deep. He isn't express, doesn't get the same bounce as the other two and his ball tends to skid onto the batter. It cuts in sharply enough but this is the kind of bowling that usually works so well in India. In Australia, with the bounce, there can be a temptation to change things.

"This is my first time playing in Australia, so I had no experience of the conditions," said Deep on Sunday. "Jassi bhai keeps on telling us things about how we can go about our job. It is not complicated stuff and it makes my job easy. He told me one thing, 'Don't get too excited. Bowl in the right spot. Just focus on your discipline. There will be something in the wicket. Just go about your job as you do in Indian conditions, repeat that here.' He told me just this."

If someone else had been telling him, Deep might even have double-checked, but with Bumrah it's different.