- June 24, 2025
Leeds presents a challenge to a fast bowler’s patience and adaptability like few others can. If the clouds are low and the wind nudging the seam, you feel it might be quite a day. What was laid out before Mohammed Siraj and Prasidh Krishna was not written from the pages of a bedtime story. The scoreboard read five wickets between them, but the tale was much fuller. Ex-Indian fast bowler Varun Aaron didn’t hold back in breaking down what happened, and it should be a lesson to any fast bowler to better read their game beyond the statistics.
Siraj’s Over-Eagerness
Let’s begin with Siraj. But sometimes, that same fire burns a touch too hot. His opening spell – three overs for 24 runs. Yikes! Now, as Varun Aaron pointed out here, Siraj was not patient. Rather than finding some kind of rhythm while allowing the conditions to do the work, he went hunting. In Test cricket, though, especially at a place like Headingley, it can be costly to be too eager.
Yes, he came back really well in the second half of the innings. He dismissed Ben Stokes, which in itself is not an easy task, and then he started to rein it in also. But even then, Siraj went for runs at the death, especially against the tail. Taking the opposition guys at 8, 9, 10 lightly can be costly – it cost him. Varun mentioned that the important takeaway for Siraj is straightforward- bring the aggression, but allow for the pitch to do its thing. Patience is not just a virtue for Test cricket, it’s a tool!
Prasidh’s One-Plan Approach: Short, Shorter, Shortest
Okay, let’s take a look at Prasidh Krishna. Big, strong, decent pace, and a natural “hit the deck” bowler. There is an issue, though: if your default setting is short of length and the pitch says fuller, it is not a good situation to be.
Varun Aaron explained that Prasidh bowled over two-thirds of his deliveries short or back of a length. That is a lot, especially when the conditions beg for him to bowl full and let the ball swing.
As if that wasn’t hard enough, Prasidh was bowling uphill for the entirety of his spell (which was not lost on Stuart Broad on commentary). When you are bowling uphill, you tend to subconsciously bowl shorter lengths, and Prasidh did not change his length. He got three wickets by using the short-ball tactic, but as Varun dryly pointed out, this was not Plan A—it was Plan B after they had moved on from Plan A.
Captaincy Calls & Learning Curves
Varun made a slightly subtler point than others did with regard to captaincy. We’re getting on board, although sometimes a bowler is not quite feeling it, and captaincy situational awareness matters SO much. In this case, Shubman Gill, when captaining Rohit Sharma, saw that Prasidh was not getting the lengths he wanted and had switched him to a short-ball plan. This got him wickets, but it completely illustrated the original question: why could he not hit it up consistently?
This leads to a wider discussion: are they developing India’s backup pacers with enough emphasis on adaptability? Prasidh has raw tools, no doubt about it. But to translate that into consistent success at the Test level requires more than just pace. It needs intelligence, variety, and the ability to notice conditions quickly.
What do you think—should we just explore a way for India to rethink rotating and developing their pace battery away from sub-continent pitches, or should we take some patience with raw talents like Prasidh? Let’s discuss Cricket.
For more, visit JeetBuzz News to read our quality Cricket Blog updates. Explore if you want to reminisce and enjoy all of your favourite cricket players and nostalgic match moments. To ensure that you never miss out, keep updated and join in the fun!
