Stoking the Indian pace fire, from Cape Town to London
Seen as a surprise pick on Test debut in 2018, Bumrah has repeatedly shown he is a game changer
KOLKATA: The journey began at Newlands three summers ago, with a touch of controversy. No Ajinkya Rahane or Ishant Sharma in the playing eleven while a bigger surprise was sprung on South Africa with Jasprit Bumrah’s debut. Those were times when skipper Virat Kohli was seen as a stickler for convention, picking Wriddhiman Saha as wicketkeeper and Ravichandran Ashwin as the sole spinner. Rohit Sharma was chosen over Rahane at No. 5 based on form, but Bumrah? The world knew Bumrah as a death-overs specialist in white-ball cricket.
As time would confirm, Virat Kohli and Ravi Shastri saw something in him as a Test bowler which the world didn’t. What looked outrageous that day was actually a firm recognition of the bowler’s skills across formats. Bumrah attacked the stumps, generated speed off an economical run-up and bowled yorkers at will. Why shouldn’t he be given a chance in Tests?
Barring a few hiccups, Bumrah’s introduction at the highest level went remarkably well. Faf du Plessis and AB de Villiers appeared to get the measure of him with a flurry of boundaries but Bumrah responded with a full delivery that nipped back and clattered into stumps of de Villiers. Next innings, du Plessis got a taste of Bumrah. A good length ball took off on pitching, kissing his gloves and flying to Saha. This time, the nip-backer got Quinton de Kock while de Villiers was done in by a length ball he couldn’t keep down.
The masterstroke slowly sank in. In the span of two innings, Bumrah had displayed maturity beyond his years and experience, zeroing in on the perfect length on a lively Cape Town pitch. That’s just the technical side. He had worked out his limitations and recalibrated his range. He knew what that pitch demanded and how it changed with every batsman. Bumrah was a perfect example of the fast bowling riches you land when you put a T20 brain in charge of a Test. The scope is almost endless, every ball, over, session, day.
The team management has rightly been protective of Bumrah, saving him for overseas tours, to conserve his unique talent for precious away victories. This is why he got to play his first home Test 37 months and 17 Tests after debut. The time playing away from home was used to read batsmen on changing surfaces, teach the body to cope with varied overhead conditions, and learn from setbacks like not getting a wicket in the World Test
Championship final loss to New Zealand before this series.
England in 2018 had a frustrating start. He did not play in the first two Tests due to a thumb fracture suffered in the preceding limited-overs series, and India were 2-0 down. He returned to the side and made an instant impact in India’s win at Trent Bridge. He went wicketless in one innings in the final Test at Oval, but still ended with 14 wickets in three matches.
Bumrah hit the stride on the tour of Australia at the end of that year, notching up wickets bowling stifling lines on hard and true surfaces. An unconventional slingshot bowling action often prompts fears of lumbar injury. Bumrah suffered a stress fracture late in 2019, but avoided a surgery and made his comeback on the New Zealand tour early last year with the team management taking a conservative approach in his rebuilding.
Now, with a run-up that seems to get shorter every day, Bumrah seems to get more out of the hyperextension of his elbow than any contemporary bowler. The results are intimidating. Moving the ball both ways from good length is one thing, but where Bumrah revels is mixing it up. We are talking about his yorker, the money ball.
The Oval win is a reminder of Bumrah’s quality. On a flat pitch, Bumrah waited for the ball to get old on the final day. “As soon as the ball started reversing a bit, Jasprit said: “Just give me the ball”,” Kohli revealed after the victory. Scuffed up on one side with Ravindra Jadeja repeatedly landing on the rough and the other side shinier and heavier after absorbing 60 overs of sweat on an unusually hot London afternoon, the Dukes ball was ready to reverse. All it required was landing on the right length.
Yorkers would be more than welcome, and Bumrah is adept at bowling them. That skill was polished as Lasith Malinga’s understudy at Mumbai Indians. The basics were learnt in the tennis ball game, and before that practising a delivery at home that made the least noise. “In tennis ball cricket you can’t bowl length balls because it doesn’t swing. There, only one ball is effective,” Bumrah said in an interview five months after his international debut.
So, there he had a ball 60 overs old waiting to be exploited
against Ollie Pope and Joe Root. On home ground, Pope had renewed England’s hope with a well-compiled 81 in the first innings. But Bumrah was gaining pace every over, going fuller now and then. He finally hits the
length. Steady seam, angled in and bowled at 140-plus, that ball had everything to beat Pope’s defence and make him Bumrah’s 100th Test scalp.
At 24 Tests, he is the fastest Indian pacer to the mark (Kapil Dev—25 Tests). But we have more surprises in store. In comes Jonny Bairstow. Not many hit the ball as hard as he does, but he walks into a sensational Bumrah spell. He launches another yorker, this time fuller and dipping even later to beat and bowl Bairstow. We’ve seen it often, the sound of timber only making it sweeter.
When the ball is reversing enough, they (India pacers) become much more lethal and we exploited reverse
perfectly