India's thunder Down Under: Aus vs Ind pace bowling comparison

Understandably, the trio of Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood and Pat Cummins, with their class and experience, outbowled the Indian pacers in the series.

India | Wickets: 42 | Avg: 31.59 | SR: 61.6

The Indian pace bowling attack consisted of Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Shami and Umesh Yadav in the first test match on their tour of Australia in 2020-21. Mohammed Shami broke his hand in the first test while batting and was ruled out of the series.

In the second test match, Umesh Yadav injured his calf and was also ruled out of the series. In the 3rd test match, India took the field with Navdeep Saini, Mohammed Siraj and Jasprit Bumrah as their pace bowlers which was quite an inexperienced attack in itself.

However, with Jasprit Bumrah getting ruled out of the final test match due to an abdominal strain, India were left with Shardul Thakur, T Natarajan, Saini and Siraj as their four pacers, which made for an utterly inexperienced attack.

In spite of that, the Indian pace bowlers did not fall a long way behind their Australian counterparts and bowled a total of 431.5 overs in the series, while picking up 42 wickets at an average of 31.59 and a strike rate of 61.6. They did not allow the Australian batters to fly away with the game at any point and maintained an economy rate of 3.07.

Mohammed Siraj, who made his test debut on the tour, was the leading wicket taker for India with 13 scalps from 6 innings at an average of 29.53, an economy rate of 2.85 and a strike rate of 62.0. He also picked up a 5-wicket haul in the third innings of the Gabba test.

Jasprit Bumrah picked up 11 wickets from 3 matches at 29.36 and a strike rate of 64.1. Shardul Thakur and T Natarajan also did the job in the last match of the series.

Australia | Wickets: 49 | Avg: 26.85 | SR: 59.7 Australia persisted with the same set of pace bowlers - Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood and Pat Cummins - throughout the four match series. Why wouldn't you, when you have such quality in the line-up. However, fatigue ultimately got the better of them and they could not provide their team with victories in both Sydney and Brisbane.

That said, the Australian pace unit had brilliant returns overall with 49 wickets at an average of 26.85, a strike rate of 59.7 and an economy rate of 2.69, with Cummins being the leader of the attack with 21 scalps - the highest in the series.