Jasprit Bumrah defended his under-fire colleague Umesh Yadav for not being able to defend 14 runs in the final over of the first T20I against Australia, calling it a one-off instance when his execution at the death went haywire.

Bumrah got India back into the match with a superb 19th over in which he gave away only two runs and Yadav had to defend 14 runs in order to stop Australia from reaching a target of 127.

Asked about Yadav’s last over, Bumrah came in defence of his senior colleague. “It happens, death bowling is always difficult in any situation. It always is 50-50,” Bumrah said.

“You try your best, and you’re clear in your execution. On some days it works, on some days it does not. We wanted to close the game in our favour, but it’s okay,” Bumrah, who took 3/16 in his four overs with 18 dot balls, said.

Bumrah pointed out that Australia, having won the toss, had the advantage of knowing what exactly they needed to do on a sluggish surface, while India spent their innings figuring out what a competitive total would be. “It’s different once you know your target. It was a small target, so once you hit one boundary, then you don’t need to take risk. They were rotating the strikes after hitting a boundary,” he said.

Bumrah further said around 140-145 would have been a par score on this wicket. “We almost pulled off the game. On this wicket, 140-145 would have been a very good score. There was low bounce and it was difficult to play big shots. It’s always difficult to chase on these kind of wickets,” he said.

Bumrah, who has one of the best yorkers among the current bowlers, conceded that it wasn’t an easy wicket to bat on.