Boland hails unusual ploy to upset India’s young gun

There was a time when the sight of a wicketkeeper coming up to the stumps for a bowler who considers himself operating at anything above gentle medium pace was a surefire means of getting the quick’s blood boiling.

But trying to limit India’s leading run scorer in the current Border-Gavaskar Trophy series, young opener Yashasvi Jaiswal on his first tour to Australia, Scott Boland openly welcomes such an insult.

On several occasions during India’s first innings of the recently concluded fourth Test at the MCG, and even more often on the final day of the memorable contest, Alex Carey took his position at the stumps as if Boland was bowling over 130km/h instead.

It represents a calculated risk as even the slightest deflection at that pace would make it impossible for any gloveman to react and catch the ball given the small margin of error.

But as Boland explained during the Boxing Day Test, where he finished with six wickets in Australia’s 184-run win that gave them a 2-1 lead heading into the final Test starting at the SCG on Friday, it is worth bet on keeping Jaiswal anchored to his crease.

“He’s been trying to take a few steps at me when I’m bowling,” Boland said of the fearless 23-year-old India opener, who has scored 359 runs at 51.28 from his eight innings in the NRMA Insurance Series to date.

“So I just want to get ‘Kez’ (Carey) up to make sure I know where he’s going to be in the fold.

“I don’t think he will walk out of the crease with the keeper up to the stumps.

“I don’t mind as a fast bowler just because I know where he wants to be.

“It just keeps him quiet and that’s the main purpose of it.”

It’s a very different response to Australia’s most successful fast bowler Glenn McGrath, who jokingly tried to have a decision overturned when then wicketkeeper Adam Gilchrist completed a “quick” during a one-day international against New Zealand at Wellington in 2005. .

McGrath mockingly signaled to the official scorers that the batter should be called back, later clarifying that the prospect of a bump against his name would be damaging to the reputation of a genuine fast bowler.

It remained the only knock performed by his bowling throughout his 14-year Test and limited-overs career.

But Carey can already claim to have ventured into that territory, albeit his successful unmasking of Jonny Bairstow at Lord’s last year off the bowling of Australian pace-bowling all-rounder Cameron Green came in vastly (and infamously) different circumstances.

It was also during the Ashes campaign in Britain last year that England’s batters started going down the pitch against Boland to try and disrupt the right-armer’s normally metronomic length.

The tactic worked to some extent as Boland’s two wickets for that series came at a cost of 115.5 apiece – a stark contrast to his career average of a miserly 19.84 – as he was clearly targeted by England’s top-order ‘Bazballers’ .

Jaiswal’s insistence on going forward against Boland during the second Test in Adelaide as well as the recent Boxing Day encounter may also be fueled by memories of India’s earlier encounter with Australia in the World Test Championship final that preceded last year’s Ashes.

In the game played at The Oval, Boland claimed five wickets for the match, including the prized scalps of Shubman Gill (in both innings) as well as dangermen Virat Kohli and Ravindra Jadeja in a single over to set Australia on the way to victory.

In that game, Boland was allowed to put in his usual relentless line with batters stuck in the crease trying to defend.

Carey admitted it was something of a risk versus reward exercise, with the payoff of keeping Jaiswal in his fold coming at the potential cost of an angular catch that could easily escape his grasp.

But that wasn’t the only intention to ensure the free-scoring opener remained anchored.

“It was also just breaking his (Jaiswal’s) momentum,” Carey said today.

“He was able to get down the wicket on a wicket that didn’t offer too much.

“It (MCG pitch) didn’t stay as low as I thought it might on day five, it still had pretty good carrying capacity so it was more just trying to break the momentum.

“As batsmen … we don’t always love it when a wicketkeeper comes up to a medium pacer, so I just tried to break that momentum.”

Carey then laughed off suggestions that he had deliberately denigrated fast bowler Boland as a “medium pacer”, then was clearly joking when he suggested he could use the tactic with out-and-out pacers Mitchell Starc and Pat Cummins in the upcoming test.

“Yeah, I might go up to ‘Starcy’ this week,” Carey said, knowing full well that Australia’s spearhead was unlikely to see it in the same welcoming way as Boland.

NRMA Insurance Men’s Test Series v India

First test: India won by 295 runs

Second test: Australia won by 10 wickets

Third test: Match tied

Fourth test: Australia won by 184 runs

Fifth test: January 3-7: SCG, Sydney, 10.30am AEDT

Australia squad: Pat Cummins (c), Sean Abbott, Scott Boland, Alex Carey, Travis Head (vc), Usman Khawaja, Sam Konstas, Marnus Labuschagne, Nathan Lyon, Mitchell Marsh, Jhye Richardson, Steve Smith (vc), Mitchell Starc, Beau Webster

India Squad: Rohit Sharma (c), Jasprit Bumrah (vc), Yashasvi Jaiswal, KL Rahul, Abhimanyu Easwaran, Devdutt Padikkal, Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, Rishabh Pant, Sarfaraz Khan, Dhruv Jurel, Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Akhammed De Siepraj, , Prasidh Krishna, Harshit Rana, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Washington Sundar. Reserves: Mukesh Kumar, Navdeep Saini, Khaleel Ahmed, Yash Dayal