“My bowling action is just like him,” joked Virat Kohli at Melbourne, when this writer questioned the Indian skipper about Jasprit Bumrah, and referred to him as ‘Jasprit’ and not ‘Virat’.
A minute later, deep into the real answer, Kohli waxed eloquent about Bumrah – the uniqueness of his action, his physical strength and the determination to do well in Test cricket.
The pacer – by picking up 9-88 in the Boxing Day Test – had just wrecked Australia and given India a 2-1 lead.
At that point, his journey from a Test debut at Cape Town, to Melbourne, spanned nine Tests and produced 48 wickets. Remarkable is one way to put it. The skipper had used other words. “He is the best bowler in the world right now,” said Kohli in Melbourne.
There wasn’t any surprise when South Africa opted to bat first on Wednesday. No, it wasn’t because they chased and lost in their first two games. Instead, they simply didn’t have enough fit bowlers.
Perhaps, their thinking was to defend whatever runs the batsmen could get – back-to-the-walls job, worst-case scenario against a mighty Indian line-up. That it came to pass, well, wasn’t surprising.
ODI cricket has changed, with 300 increasingly the par-score at most venues irrespective of conditions. Even so, a lowly total – the 220 kinds – brings out the best in bowlers, especially pacers. It inspires them to bowl full steam in initial spells – all about early wickets, you see. It didn’t come as a surprise, thus, when Kagiso Rabada charged in.
There have been question marks about his form and fitness recently, mostly an offshoot of exertions in the IPL. But in the absence of Dale Steyn and Lungi Ngidi, faced with defending 228, South Africa needed their best bowler to come to the party.
And he did – that spell from Rabada was why we cherish him. A true pacer, notching up the miles when needed, using that one spot to induce disconcerting bounce, swinging the ball both ways, just menacing really – this was Rabada in fifth gear and Rohit Sharma had to duck out of the way, changing his batting style to seize the moment.
At the other end of this spectrum is Jasprit Bumrah. If the question of inconsistency has been asked of Rabada, it hasn’t yet come Bumrah’s way. If the Protea needed inspiration, and fire from a give-it-all 220-odd target, the Man in Blue did the same – and more – without the additional riders.
As the sun hid behind clouds, and the new ball started nipping around, Bumrah found purchase from the wicket and conditions, generating enough movement to gobsmack even Hashim Amla. If the India-South Africa encounter is played just in the microcosm of those two magnificent spells, Bumrah wins, hands down.
It isn’t to say that Bumrah hasn’t failed to defend lowly totals, no. The underlying point herein is consistency. When was the last time, the following words were uttered – “Bumrah has bowled badly today”.
Scratch your heads, jog your memories, and the answer would be still no. Era to era, across formats, there is always one out of every ten fast bowlers who towers over his peers. They all want to be that man, transcending conditions and situations with pace, movement and guile with the new and old ball. Bumrah is THAT guy.
“Fast bowling is unnatural for the human body,” said Wasim Akram once.
Truth told there is nobody quite like Bumrah out there at the moment. He is often compared to Lasith Malinga, particularly due to the slinging manner of their yorkers. Yet, the differentiation in his high-arm open-chested action to that of Malinga’s low-elbow slant-arm action is not talked about enough.
His run-up compares to Akram; long but he only starts sprinting from a short-distance, bustling in and delivering high pace from his final approach to the crease. Bowling coach Bharat Arun played a major role in making sure Bumrah didn’t alter or adjust this unique action. The bowler himself, in turn, made sure that he has enough physical fitness and strength to deliver it time and again, across formats.
This last phrase – ‘across formats’ – is of great importance. 2018 was challenging for Bumrah, in that he had to adjust from white-ball to red-ball cricket on the international level. He leaned on his Ranji experience for the same, but the rigours of five-day cricket in alien conditions are different.
Then, there is the big adjustment – becoming a stock bowler in Tests is very different from being one in ODIs and T20s. In that, the England tour played a pivotal role last summer. In Bhuvneshwar Kumar’s absence, trailing 2-0 in the series, Bumrah was rushed into the playing eleven as soon as he recovered from injury.
“Attacking lines” was the reason given – up until then, Bumrah didn’t move the ball like Kumar does on a string. But he found a new mode of attack – the ball rearing off a length and holding its line, or even coming in. It bamboozled the batsmen enough for him to pick up a five-wicket haul as India won the Nottingham Test.
On Wednesday, Bumrah deployed the same trick – getting the ball to skid off length on a hard Southampton deck, with the conditions affording him exaggerated movement. Amla nicked it, as did Quiton de Kock, and nobody was surprised.
“Test cricket brought a change in his (Bumrah’s) mindset. He believes that he can nick people off with length balls, whether it is a flat pitch, assisting bowlers or not. He believes he can nick you off on any wicket now. As a batsman, I know that when a bowler has that kind of belief, he is going to bowl consistently, not do anything different and still get me out.”
— Virat Kohli
Cricketers often assimilate skills from the shorter to longer formats, and the resultant at times comes out to be different from what they expected. It is particularly true in batsmen’s case, wherein they struggle with shot selection.
KL Rahul is an obvious example, in how his decision-making has suffered ever since he opened up to concentrate in limited-overs’ formats. Bumrah is different, stepping up to his 2019 challenge.
From limited-overs to Test cricket without breaking a sweat, he has now assimilated red-ball learning into his white-ball tradecraft.
It is akin to Artificial Intelligence programming – ever learning and transforming, ever improving. And it is the next step in his evolution – the quintessential T20-era pacer, who intermixes learning and experiences from different formats, moulding it together with his unique bowling action.
Six months on, from Melbourne to Southampton, as focus has gradually shifted from red to white ball cricket, there is no need to shift goalposts, no need to alter Kohli’s words from December 2018. Best in the business? Jasprit Bumrah: check.
