Watch, improvise, deliver magic balls

This is also an Indian attack where bowlers complement each other's strengths and take cues from what the others are doing

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NEW DELHI: Pakistan lost their last eight wickets for 36 runs in Ahmedabad on Saturday. Australia lost their last eight wickets for 89 runs in Chennai last week. These are spectacular collapses that have comprised spectacular deliveries.

Against Australia, Ravindra Jadeja triggered the implosion by getting Steve Smith with a ripper that pitched on middle stump and hit the top of off. A bewildered Smith could do nothing but acknowledge Jadeja's brilliance and trudge back to the dressing room. Against Pakistan, Jasprit Bumrah produced an off-cutter that deviated so sharply it could have made ace off-spinner R Ashwin envious.

In Bumrah's universe of slower balls, this was a worthy sequel to the slower yorker that flummoxed Shaun Marsh in a Test in Australia nearly five years ago.

It accounted for Mohammad Rizwan, who had marauded the Sri Lankans in Hyderabad and done the hard yards in Ahmedabad to reach 49.

This is an Indian attack that can produce these magic balls.

This is also an Indian attack that looks to create pressure by squeezing the opposition in the middle overs. This is also an Indian attack where bowlers complement each other's strengths and take cues from what the others are doing.

Without the confluence of these qualities, India wouldn't have been able to bowl out Australia and Pakistan for under 200. In between these matches, India also restricted Afghanistan to 272/8 on a Ferozeshah Kotla surface where an earlier game between South Africa and Sri Lanka had yielded 754 runs.