The tale of Bumrah's brilliant yorker

India's bowling hero Jasprit Bumrah has credited teammate Rohit Sharma for the brilliant slower ball that spectacularly dismissed Shaun Marsh at the MCG on Friday.

Bumrah, who honed his trademark yorker by aiming at the skirting board of his Gujurat home as a youngster, took career-best figures of 6-33 to help rout the home side for just 151 and bring India closer to their maiden series win in Australia.

The highlight of Bumrah's performance was the dismissal of Marsh with the final ball before lunch, the fourth wicket in a pivotal opening session for the tourists.

Bowling from round the wicket, the 25-year-old's slower ball completely deceived the left-hander, who was trapped dead in front to ice a morning that turned the match – and possibly the series - in India's favour.

"When I was bowling before lunch, the wicket was not doing a lot and the ball had become soft," Bumhrah told cricket.com.au.

"Rohit was there at mid-off and he said, 'it's the last ball, you could try a slower ball'. He told me that I use it quite a lot in white-ball cricket and I could still try it.

"The execution was good and we got a wicket off the last ball.

"(I have to thank Rohit) for the suggestion, obviously.

"The wicket is on the slower side and sometimes the batsmen play with hard hands, so (the slower ball) could come into play. So that was the plan."

While Bumrah's superb performance was primarily based around bowling full-pitched deliveries, his dismissal of Marcus Harris with a short ball was also a case of India's plans being executed to perfection.

Bumrah struck Harris on the helmet on Thursday evening and had also done so in the second Test in Perth, with the Australian telling cricket.com.au before play that he would look to play Bumrah's bouncers instead of evading them on a wicket that was providing inconsistent bounce to the quicks.

With Bumrah bowling from the Southern End, Indian skipper Virat Kohli employed a pair of catching fielders around 15 metres from the bat on the leg side to Australia's left-handers, one just behind square and one in front.

The field placing meant Harris risked popping a catch to one of the close fielders if he opted to ride a bouncer and push it away on the leg side. Instead, the left-hander attempted a full-blooded pull shot at a well-directed Bumrah short ball and top-edged a catch to Ishant Sharma at deep fine leg.

"Whenever we bowl any kind of delivery, we always discuss it with the captain," Bumrah said. "So we tried to set the field according to that.

"We saw four of our batsmen got out on the short ball, so we kept an eye on what was happening on the wicket … it was difficult to negate the short delivery.

"So that was the plan and we got a wicket so it's a good day."

In just his first year of Test cricket, Bumrah has now taken five-wicket hauls in South Africa, England and Australia and his performance on Friday was the best-ever by an Indian in Tests at the MCG.

A lithesome 25-year-old with an unusually whippy action, Bumrah is able to generate speeds of up to 150kph despite a short run-up that stems from his years playing tennis-ball cricket as a youngster.

Having represented India in limited-overs cricket for almost two years before he was handed his Test debut, critics suggested Bumrah's action was not ready for the rigours of the longer format.

But he insists he always believed he could thrive with the red ball as well and praised his junior coaches for throwing out the textbook and encouraging him to persist with his unusual bowling style.

"I've been lucky in that no one has tried to change my action," he said.

"They thought if I change my action, I'll lose the things that I have. So I've been lucky with that and I've always tried to make my body stronger.

"I've done relatively well in first-class cricket … so I was always confident that whenever I got the chance, I would be able to do well. I used to love playing four-day cricket back home.

"I've always wanted to play Test cricket and living the dream is the best feeling."

Domain Test Series v India

Dec 6-10: India won by 31 runs

Dec 14-18: Australia won by 146 runs

Dec 26-30: Third Test, MCG

Jan 3-7: Fourth Test, SCG

Australia squad: Tim Paine (c, wk), Josh Hazlewood (vc), Mitch Marsh (vc), Pat Cummins, Aaron Finch, Peter Handscomb, Marcus Harris, Travis Head, Usman Khawaja, Nathan Lyon, Shaun Marsh, Peter Siddle, Mitchell Starc, Archie Schiller

India squad: Virat Kohli (c), Murali Vijay, KL Rahul, Mayank Agarwal, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane, Hardik Pandya, Hanuma Vihari, Rohit Sharma, Rishabh Pant (wk), Parthiv Patel (wk), Ravi Ashwin, Ravi Jadeja, Kuldeep Yadav, Mohammed Shami, Ishant Sharma, Umesh Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah, Bhuvneshwar Kumar