Broad lavishes praise on deadly Bumrah
Says facing the Indian speedster is unlike facing anyone else
Facing him isn't like facing anyone else in the world and I used to hate it. Sri Lanka's Lasith Malinga, with his slingy round-arm release, had that point of difference about him and Bumrah has something similar in that his deliveries are incredibly hard to pick up."
– Stuart Broad, former English pacer
Former England fast-bowler Stuart Broad has heaped praise on India's fast-bowling spearhead Jasprit Bumrah, saying that facing him isn't like facing anyone else in the world and that he hated facing deliveries from him while batting in his playing days.
In his magical spell of 6-45, where Bumrah produced a masterclass in reverse-swing bowling, he removed Root, Ollie Pope, Jonny Bairstow, Ben Stokes, before cleaning up the tail by removing Tom Hartley and James Anderson.
His dismissals of Root and Pope left everyone mesmerised - Root poked at one and nicked to first slip, while Pope was decimated by a searing inswinging yorker ripping out the middle and leg stumps. The wicket of Stokes brought up Bumrah's 150th scalp in the format.
"Facing him isn't like facing anyone else in the world and I used to hate it. Sri Lanka's Lasith Malinga, with his slingy round-arm release, had that point of difference about him and Bumrah has something similar in that his deliveries are incredibly hard to pick up.
"Because he trots in from a very calm, short, shuffling
run-up, he generates no real energy and there is therefore no real build-up to the ball suddenly being upon you at the striker's end. It can be very disconcerting.
"Think of some of the best fast bowlers that have played the game and they tend to have a common thread of approaching the crease with such a tempo that your brain is telling you to expect searing pace.
"Bumrah is the opposite, but he creates such whip at the crease by bracing his front leg - always a good sign for bowling fast - and then releasing the ball, not over his head or even over his front foot, but a good foot closer to the batter," wrote Broad in his column for Daily Mail on Sunday. Talking about his spell at Visakhapatnam in detail, Broad opined, "The ball that did for Root was a classic of this type.