Mumbai: Who would have picked Akash Deep to play a pivotal role in tiring England’s three-man pace pack on a moving Day 3 at the business end of this riveting series? The odds were stacked heavily against it. His Test batting average was 7.46. His tallest first class score, an unbeaten 53.
Deep’s only job when he walked out to bat in the late stages of Day 2 under fading light was to ensure his team didn’t lose any more specialist batters. If anything, try and frustrate the bowlers some more, the next day.
But who was to know the resolve of a man who hadn’t even learned to bowl properly with the leather ball until he was 20. Deep left Bihar for Durgapur, then Kolkata with all the push factors that are all so common in India. On Saturday, he managed to make those sacrifices worthwhile. Now, living his dream, he wasn’t going to give in that easily at The Oval. Not with the Test match and the series to be decided in a virtual second innings shoot out.
Zak Crawley should have known better when he dropped the night watchman at third slip on 21. Deep had begun his innings with a streaky four over mid-wicket, but slowly grew into confidence as his partner Yashasvi Jaiswal began handing him the strike, treating him like just another batter. Between the two, they had charted out a clear plan. Deep wouldn’t be mucking around, while Jaiswal played normally.
Every time England pacers went fuller, Deep swung hard. Every time they went short, he was able to pull and cut. With the moisture gone, the pitch wasn’t doing as much anymore and Deep had begun to offer front foot defense like a specialist batter.
With a flurry of boundaries, uncomplicated technique and plenty of fortitude, Deep would bring up his first Test fifty, leaving the Indian dressing room in splits. There was lots of admiration and some giggles as there always are when a night watchman does the day job, but the English bowlers couldn’t see the funny side of it. Being a bowler down with Chris Woakes out injured, England did not want to spend the better half of the first session chasing leather due to the exploits of a promoted tail ender.
It was only fair that Deep had Jaiswal in company when he was punching the air after reaching his fifty. Jaiswal had charted his own life story in similar fashion — migrating to a metro with a dream very big, but not a penny in hand.
By the time England finally got Deep with a short ball on 66 (94b), he had stitched the only 100-plus stand of the match. To England’s dismay, Deep’s contribution was also the second highest individual score of the match behind Jaiswal, who went on to score a hundred. And although India’s batters to follow could not post sizable scores themselves, they all benefited from Deep’s near two-hour vigil at the crease as it showed in the form of a drop in speeds from England’s bowlers.
In terms of nightwatchman heroics, the bar has been set far too high by Australia’s Jason Gillespie who scored 201* against Bangladesh in 2006 at Chittagong. But among India’s late order batters making a difference, Deep’s batting would sit right next to Syed Kirmani’s unbeaten 100 against Australia in 1979 in Mumbai.
Having already won a Test match on his own with his primary skill set through his 10-wicket haul in Birmingham, the pacer who can bat may still have more punches to throw in India’s bowling innings.
