India, Feb. 11 -- Among the spectacular things Jasprit Bumrah does on a cricket field, you are more likely to recall him uprooting the zing bails behind Dawid Malan with his opening burst or yorking Mahmudullah at the death in the 2023 ODI World Cup than his off-cutter that ended Mohammed Rizwan's resistance in the middle overs to peg Pakistan back.

Wickets with the new ball and toe-crushing yorkers are the visually more arresting but often matches are won and lost in the uninteresting middle-overs. Whether that phase which constitutes 60 percent of a 50-over game should remain untouched is subject to argument, but we'll leave that for another day.

It is in this phase that Virat Kohli and Kane Williamson rule with nudges and steers, lat...