PERTH, Australia - Praising his young team for their resilience under pressure, India's stand-in captain Jasprit Bumrah expressed his joy in leading them to a memorable victory in the opening test against Australia on Monday.
Bowled out for a modest 150 in their first innings, India responded through pace spearhead Bumrah to skittle Australia for 104 and the tourists posted a mammoth 487-6 declared with Yashasvi Jaiswal and Virat Kohli leading the way.
Bumrah finished with a match haul of eight wickets as India bowled out Australia again on the fourth day to seal a 295-run victory.
"Obviously, a special win, my first win as captain, I'm very happy with that and more happy with the performance of the team. We were put under pressure and showed character," Bumrah told reporters at the Perth Stadium.
"Whenever tough scenarios come, I ask myself 'how I can contribute?' We're a new side so I wanted to put myself in tough scenarios when we needed to do something, to make the job a bit easier for the new guys coming in."
India's win came in the absence of regular skipper Rohit Sharma, who took a break to care for his newborn child, while batsman Shubman Gill was out injured.
"Going forward, we can take a lot of confidence from that. Obviously in this game, a lot of positives for us," Bumrah said.
"We scored a lot of runs in the second innings, new guys coming in also chipped in with a lot of runs. And of course Virat scoring a hundred is a great sign for us."
Rohit will return for the second test in Adelaide starting on Dec. 6.
"I'm not going to tell him I'm going to lead," Bumrah said with a laugh.
"I'm going to help him in whatever capacity I can."
This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text.
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