The media waited for Virat Kohli’s press conference at the Hyatt, Andheri East ahead of Team India’s departure for the 2017 Champions Trophy. Ajinkya Rahane was busy in an animated discussion with Umesh Yadav. Shikhar Dhawan was playing with his son. Yuvraj Singh was providing Dhawan with company. Dinesh Karthik and Ravindra Jadeja were walking around the lobby engaged in a casual discussion. At one end watching his seniors, a bespectacled Jasprit Bumrah found company in kids, as he obliged to their requests for selfies.
At 23, Bumrah was the youngest member of the lot. Fellow Gujarat lad Hardik Pandya is two months older. Unlike the flamboyant Pandya, Bumrah’s social approach had slice of timidity. It was tough to fathom that we were looking at one of the finest bowlers in limited-overs cricket. He already was one. And he wasn’t even a year-and-a-half into international cricket.
The tale would take a different turn by the time the Champions Trophy would come to an end, and a bitter one for Bumrah at that. But this is about his rise…
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New Zealand needed 29 from 2 overs to seal the T20I series. They had never lost one to India. Colin de Grandhomme and Henry Nicholls, power hitters both, were at the crease. Bumrah anticipated Nicholls’ shuffle and bowled a slow off-cutter, and the feeble lob found fine-leg. The over went for 10, out of which four were byes.
Not long ago, Bumrah had managed to tame the beasts in Brendon McCullum and Aaron Finch for Mumbai Indians (MI) in one of the greatest Super Overs in T20 history. These men were mere mortals in comparison.
The third T20I was set in India’s favour. Pandya went for 13 in the final over, and a 6-run victory is nabbed. Bumrah’s 2-0-9-2 won him the Man of the Match as Kohli walked up to the podium to collect another silverware.
The game prior saw New Zealand belting 196 from their 20 overs at Rajkot. It could have been in excess of 200. Bumrah finished with 4-0-23-0. Bumrah’s 69 from 10 overs and three scalps won him the Man of the Series award. Big deal? No. Bumrah’s career economy reads a further impressive 6.74, and that’s complemented with an average of just over 18!
The defining moment
Every major cricketer has had his defining moment. Perhaps the Nagpur T20I earlier this year was Bumrah’s. India had lost the first T20I at Kanpur, which had made the Nagpur contest a do-or-die affair for them to stay alive in the series against England.
England were chasing a paltry 145. They needed 41 from the last 5 overs and had Joe Root and Ben Stokes, both well set, at the crease. Bumrah gave away 8. Ashish Nehra followed that with a 5-run over and sent back Stokes.
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Bumrah followed with an over that ran 001002. England now needed 24 from last 12 balls. Root was still batting and the dangerous Jos Buttler was eyeing the stands. He lived up to his reputation. Nehra leaked 16. England needed just 8 from the last over.
Bumrah now trapped Root leg-before. There was an inside edge that the umpire had not spotted. But Moeen Ali managed a single, bringing the equation to 7 from 4.
Then the dangerous Buttler swung at a slow off-cutter and missed. Then he tried to make room, but Bumrah did not provide any; Buttler was cleaned up. Chris Jordan managed a bye.
With 6 to score off the last ball, Moeen failed to do a Javed Miandad: he swung and missed. Bumrah gave away only a run as India won by 5 runs. They went on to win the series.
Mind you, Bumrah bowls majorly in the Powerplay and at the death. His economy rate of 7.23 in the death overs (16 to 20) is the best in this format. It is for a reason that Bumrah is the No. 1 ranked T20I bowler.
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India’s supremacy at home has gone unchallenged for two years now. New Zealand were on the verge. They had almost pulled off a sensational chase to pocket the ODI series at Kanpur. Tom Latham was leading the chase. He had the brutal de Grandhomme in company. New Zealand, chasing 338, needed 30 from the final 18 balls.
Bumrah’s over went 1011wd1lbW1. Not only that, he combined with MS Dhoni to run out Latham. The equation had come down to 25 from 12 balls. Bhuvneshwar Kumar went for 10. Now, with 15 to score off the final over, Bumrah gave away 4 from the first 5 balls, sending back Mitchell Santner.
India won by 6 runs and took the series. Bumrah finished with 10-0-47-3. Remember, New Zealand scored at over six-and-a-half, and Bumrah bowled mostly in the Powerplay overs and at the death.
Earlier, when India had whitewashed Sri Lanka 5-0 in ODIs, Bumrah won the Player of the Series. He is currently the third-ranked bowler in ODIs. He now has 52 wickets from 28 ODIs at 22.28, and is economy rate of 4.77. These are exceptional numbers in today’s cricket, especially for a death bowler.
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“Outstanding temperament from Bumrah. He’s shown he’s got all the tools of the trade. But importantly (points to the head), what he’s shown that he’s a thinking bowler,” said an elated Ravi Shastri after India’s thrilling maiden T20I series win against New Zealand, at Thiruvananthapuram. It was under Shastri’s tenure as team director that Bumrah had broken into the national side in early 2016.
Bumrah bowling is an unforgettable sight. There are memories of the young kid being hammered in his early IPL days (2013 to 2015). He had a bowling average of 50.45 and an economy rate of 9 across his first three seasons. But MI had backed him despite that.
Whether IPL is a boon or a bane will still be debated but thanks to the glitzy affair, cricket got its Bumrah.
He was handpicked for MI by John Wright. He was leaking runs. He kept seeking Lasith Malinga’s advice, and that was to hone his skills and add more variations to his kitty. While in the fringes, he developed his death bowling and the apparent nerd in him was never tired of bothering Malinga for inputs. Eventually he managed to take off the death-bowling mantle from the Sri Lankan legend.
The wiry Gujarat pacer had another champion guiding him as the bowling coach. Bumrah credits Shane Bond for helping him plan for each batter, and for teaching him the “importance of patience”.
Is it the action?
Batsmen would take time to figure out Bumrah;s complicated bowling action. The unorthodox positioning of his arm gives an impression of ball coming at a greater pace than it actually is. His right arm remains straight due to the shoulder extension. He doesn’t bend the elbows either. He gets the benefit of a high-arm release and most of the magic is done during the release, with the malleable wrist and some power from the shoulder.
But how long will he last in today’s world when every bowler is scrutinised by video analysts and number crunchers?
“Nowadays, with technology, people start to analyse and if you only have one or two tricks, they will start to line you up. The things you do early on people don’t know but once they start studying videos and know what to plan for, they know what to expect. So you have to keep on evolving and according to situations you have to adapt,” Bumrah told the press in one of the conferences in Sri Lanka.
Bumrah has a mature head on shoulders and the willingness to improve every day. That sets him apart from most men of his generation. The calmness, the composure and the hunger to learn are all essential parts of becoming a Jasprit Bumrah.
When asked the pressure of delivering at the death, Bumrah spoke about his simple mantra in Tuesday’s presentation ceremony: “If you think of pressure, you won’t be able to deliver. I wasn’t thinking too much and was focusing on every ball, and how to execute them.”
The incredible Bumrah-Bhuvi partnership has helped Indian cricket blossom. Few men have understood Bumrah’s efficiency the way Bhuvi has: “The kind of action he has, batsmen find it difficult to pick him, but he has also improved on a few things. He had a yorker. He has improved his slower deliveries too. When you bowl with such a bowler, you are confident that if you do well, he will also do well from the other end. If you aren’t having a good day, at least he will bowl well. We feed off that confidence. The best part is before every match we talk to each other about the wicket and what strategy we can employ. That helps a lot.”
The RP boost
RP Singh’s arrival at the Gujarat camp in 2015 had done wonders to Parthiv Patel’s boys. RP is no longer the bowler who used to take new ball for India, but he became a guiding influence. Looking back at the 2015-16 season, RP recalled in an interview with The Indian Express: “We worked on lengths during the season, and how to plan according to the batsman and the pitch. Also, to get the ball shape away from the right-hander, we did some work on getting his wrist position right.”
Bumrah’s sole aim was no more to wander wide of the crease and darting the middle-stick. He evolved that season. He claimed 21 scalps in Ranji Trophy in 2015-16 at just over 25, but what forced the spotlight onto him was his show in Gujarat’s victorious Vijay Hazare Trophy campaign.
In the final, against Delhi, Bumrah claimed 5 wickets and RP 4. Bumrah finished with 21 wickets from nine games in the tournament at 16, and he had gone for just 4 an over. One of his prized scalps was of Dhoni, with a beautiful leg-cutter. Weeks later, Dhoni would go on to hail Bumrah as the “find of the Australian tour.”
Australia 2016
Mohammed Shami’s injury had dented India’s hopes in the series. The pacers were leaking runs as Australia had raced to a 4-0 lead in the ODIs. A whitewash loomed on the horizon for Dhoni’s men. The Indian think-tank decided to hand the 22-year-old Shami’s replacement his national cap.
Australia still belted 330 for 7 in their 50 overs courtesy centuries from David Warner and Mitchell Marsh. The other bowlers were plundered for plenty, but the batsmen had no valid answers to Bumrah’s guile. His first scalp was the prized one of Steven Smith. And his trademark yorker castled James Faulkner at the death.
Bumrah finished with 10-0-40-2.
Manish Pandey stole the thunder with his match-winning hundred, but Bumrah had shown his mettle. In the T20I series that followed, Bumrah finished as the highest wicket-taker (6 wickets at 17.16) as India whitewashed Australia 3-0.
Less than a fortnight since his debut, Bumrah had established himself as one of the key players ahead of 2016 World T20.
Champions Trophy
At only 23, Bumrah has seen the highs and the lows too. He has learnt how ruthless social media could be, and how a downfall could take only a few minutes.
Bumrah was fresh from the IPL triumph where he too played a substantial role. He didn’t get the desired number of wickets in India’s voyage to the final in the Champions Trophy: 4 wickets in as many games at 35.50 was hardly what was expected of him. It was forgotten that he had gone at only 4.3 an over.
In the final against Pakistan, much before the Fakhar Zaman began his onslaught, Bumrah had found an edge. Dhoni held the catch. The on-field umpire overlooked the overstepping, but the third umpire didn’t. Zaman survived and lasted long enough to bat India out of the contest.
” Thapad se darr nai lagta sahab, no ball se lagta hai” #SpiritOfSports
*just for fun only, nothing against bumrah pic.twitter.com/KGSnrEqCOG
— Prashant (@prashantDocean) June 27, 2017
It was a rare off day for Bumrah. He bowled 9 wicketless overs for 68. He was cast as the villain everywhere, from memes to traffic police posters. At 23, this could have shattered his morale.
But he only came back stronger. Five months since, he has 33 international wickets to his name at over 18, and has bagged two Man of the Series awards. The dot-ball pressure that he manages to build stands unparalleled.
Leader and the route ahead
Mohammad Siraj made his national debut in the second T20I at Rajkot. He fell victim to Colin Munro’s onslaught. Bumrah was quick to console the debutant and tried his best to boost the youngster’s morale and calm his nerves.
That is not the only instance. Throughout his brief career, Bumrah has displayed enough character, diligence and maturity to be perceived as a good leader, especially among bowlers.
Shami and Umesh’s return in the Test setup will bolster the Indian pace department ahead of crucial overseas tours. It may not be a bad idea to throw Bumrah in the red-ball mix.
Of course, there is the 77-Test old Ishant Sharma. But isn’t time running out for the Delhi skipper? Isn’t it the ripe time for Bumrah?
Bond recently told Live Mint: “There is little doubt about him being a world-class white-ball bowler and I do think he will play Test cricket and can sustain success across all formats.”
RP and Javagal Srinath have agreed on that.
With the red ball, Bumrah averages a tad over 25. In the semi-final of the 2016-17 Ranji Trophy, Bumrah and RP ripped through Jharkhand to pave Gujarat’s path to the final. While RP got 9 wickets in the game, Bumrah dismantled the Jharkhand batting in the second innings with 6 for 29. Chasing 235, Jharkhand collapsed to 111.
Gujarat, despite Bumrah’s absence in the final, went on to beat Mumbai to lift the trophy.
Bumrah has done enough to earn his graduation to Test cricket. Where he fits in the Shastri-Kohli plan will determine his future with the red ball.
The geeky lad can meanwhile continue to learn the trades from the best.
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