There’s a famous image of Mohammed Shami beaming at the camera, holding up two broken pieces of a stump like trophies. It was taken after the final day of the Visakhapatnam Test in 2019, a game India won on the back of a classic Shami fourth-innings burst. At Edgbaston, nearly five years on and thousands of miles away, Akash Deep struck a strikingly similar pose: a ball in one hand, a stump in the other. Only, he wasn’t quite sure how to be in the moment. He ran a hand through his hair, as if to style it for the photo, then pulled the India cap over it anyway. You could tell this was all new, the attention, the applause, the idea that the cameras were now trained on him.
It was Akash’s first five-wicket haul in Test cricket. His first ten-for in a match. And the first time he was the centrepiece of a famous Indian victory. Like Shami in that Vizag game, Akash too knocked the stumps out four times in a stunning burst of seam bowling on the fourth and fifth days. But the parallels didn’t stop there. Speaking to the BBC after the match, England captain Ben Stokes said the surface had a subcontinental feel to it, a passing remark that only added another layer to the deja vu.
Before Sunday, no Asian team had ever won a Test at Edgbaston, a stat that hints at a deeper mismatch in conditions. You could wager that the swing and seam and perhaps the bounce at this venue undid those other visiting teams. But in keeping with how Stokes likes his team to play, this was a flat deck. Flatter, perhaps, than even the home side anticipated. England’s four-man pace attack toiled on it and managed only 9 for 593 across both innings. Akash Deep, on debut in England, took 10 for 187, and looked utterly at home.
After the third day, he spoke about what he’d always imagined Test cricket in England to be like and how the Bazball era had forced a rethink. The dream scenario for a fast bowler is perhaps obvious: a grassy deck, a stacked cordon, and a ball doing plenty. But for Akash, it is possible the choice may not be that straightforward. He’s just as at ease – perhaps even more effective – on a dry wicket like this, with two slips, a gully, and a pair of midwickets in play. A set-up that encourages him to attack the stumps, not just the outside edge. It’s what he’s known and done through much of his first-class career in India. It’s what he did in Birmingham, relentlessly attacking the stumps and outbowling every other seamer on display.
The catching midwickets are useful even if they are not always in play. They allowed Akash to pitch the ball a few inches outside off stump and seam it back in to the right-hander, with the insurance of leg-side fielders in case of an error. And if the ball happened to kiss a fifth-day crack along the way – jagging low or spiking off the pitch – all the better.
Like Shami, Akash gets a remarkable number of batters bowled in India. Seven of his ten Test wickets at home have crashed into the stumps. Before the start of the season in September, his domestic numbers told the story: 42 of his first 118 first-class wickets were bowled, a staggering 35%. Among Indian bowlers, only Shami comes close with 38% of bowled dismissals in home Tests. It’s a rate bettered globally since 2000 only by Shoaib Akhtar and Shannon Gabriel.
