Ladies and Gentlemen, stand on your feet and applaud Jasprit Bumrah. The second day of the second Test at Vizag between India and England belongs to the man from Gujrat.
There are speedsters, swing-bowlers, yorker-specialists, variation-specialist bowlers, line and length bowlers, mind reading bowlers, specific red and white ball bowlers, and then there walks Jasprit Bumrah. Is there any better modern day bowler? One can take eternal to find the second one!
When Jimmy Anderson and Yashasvi Jaiswal- two poles of the age bar, did something tremendous- with Jaiswal reaching his 200 and Jimmy bowling a stupendous eight over spell under the morning heat, none of them thought of coming back again, and then both made returns for their respective jobs at the end of the day.
Jasprit Bumrah: A magical poet and a painter with ball in hand
“Watching a fast bowler get the stumps to cartwheel, or hit the stumps and leave the batsman knocked off their feet- that was fascinating to me as a child.”
Before the start of the series in Hyderabad, a gentle Jasprit Bumrah put those very words in an interview with Ali Martin for the Guardian and he also spoke about how he used to ball pointing towards a wood to keep the noise away to not disturb his mom, who takes an afternoon nap.
There were two moments one could build a sculpture made a painting, write down a poem and a NFT. One was the perfect yorker to Ollie Pope, and then the ball to Ben Stokes, who kind of surrendered putting his bat on the ground.
The Pope yorker was really special given how good the batter has been batting in this series, and he looked in really good rhythm against most of the bowlers. But all on a sudden Bumrah came and showed the dressing room path.
Bumrah and his smile with sheer greatness and specialty
By the time Zak Crawley swung his willow to send Ravichandran Ashwin and Kuldeep Yadav and Axar Patel over the boundary rope for consecutive boundaries and over boundaries to celebrate his fifty, and looked in ominous touch, it felt like India’s 396 of the first innings would be crossed by the touring side in less than three sessions. Even Ashwin, with his aura around him, was looking for some inspiration.
With the wicket of Crawley, who attempted a big stride for a huge shot was caught by Shreyas Iyer, almost in the same fashion Travis Head picked up Rohit Sharma during the 2023 World Cup final. And as soon as Joe Root walked out bat, Bumrah didn’t even look at his captain before starting to warm up.
Bumrah’s spell to Root was nothing sort of a rhythmical poem. Bumrah found reverse swing even with a 23-24 over old ball. The first ball of the over in which Root got out, was a outswinger. The next ball was another outswinger, and Root left both of those. Bumrah decided to bowl a couple of inswingers to Root, who used his feet to cover the swing in both of those.
The real magic was the fifth ball and it was the ball going away from his body, and Root by mistake, thought it as an inswinger, and played at it. As soon as he nicked it, he shouted aww, but that was too late as Shubman Gill by then had already grabbed it in the first slip. The last ball of the over was almost of a perfect yorker to Johnny Bairstow, but for Bumrah’s standard, it was a feather down the leg side.
Then his target was Pope, and the yorker to dismiss him was just a fruit of the plant Bumrah had for the last 15 minutes. He kept on bowling Pope with all kind of balls, outswingers, inswingers, slower ones, short balls, and boom there came the yorker, and the way Pope felt, it looked he didn’t even imagine the ball when he started playing the game.
The last wicket, needed for India to seal England’s first innings was Ben Stokes, who was showing his power and smartness to put the spinners all around the park to get some valuable runs. The score was 229/7 and Stokes was on 47* in 53 balls, and Bumrah bowled a peach of a nut round the stumps, that pitched on middle and off and went straight to hit middle of off to send back Stokes, who kind of acknowledge Bumrah putting his bat down on the ground.
Oh, you love stats? Bumrah’s 6/45 helped him getting 151 Test wickets at an average of 20.28, the best since the second world war and the second best after Sydney Barnes (16.43), who played his last Test 110 years ago. And all this came on the placid surface, where Ashwin went for 0/61 in 12 overs, just the fifth wicketless innings at home for him when the opponents gets all out.
Bumrah feels he is blessed to play for India, it’s actually the other way around, the country is and should be proud and blessed of having him in their side.
Anderson showed his class in the morning as was Jaiswal in mini battle
Glenn McGrath, on 563 Test wickets, was asked to carry for one more Test summer to get the 600 feat, and he said that no one else in this planet knew his body and action better than him. Feed Trueman said that anyone after him to take more than 300+ wickets in Test would be a tired man and here is his countryman, Jimmy Anderson on 693.
Anderson bowled a fine eight over spell, and he went past of the edge of the bat of Jaiswal, who by then was on 190*. Jaiswal realized it was better to throw his willow against the spin bowlers, and got some runs to get to the record mark. He did. And he reached his 200* with two boundaries, and jumped in the air and pumped the bat towards the sky.
Anderson from the background saw it. Before the incident, he actually sent back Ashwin, with whose standing on the bowling end Anderson wasn’t happy. He was drilled for a boundary by Ashwin, who edged the very next ball to the wicket-keeper.
The mini-battle between Anderson and Bumrah was still on. The former bowled a half volley really away from Jaiswal, and looked with a eye sight to ask Jaiswal to smash the next ball. The very next delivery was a very slow and away outside ball, to which Jaiswal used his feet but didn’t get the full elevation and was caught outside the ring. Jaiswal made 209 and Anderson ended with 3/47 in 25 overs. Both made the fans stood on their feet before Bumrah snatched the limelight.
When Jaiswal made that 209, and Anderson finished the spell, none thought of getting back on the park on the same day, and expected to get the headlines on their name. They weren’t aware of Bumrah, only one man was, Bumrah himself.
Ind vs Eng, Vizag: Anderson & Jaiswal- Two poles of the age-bar stand apart from the rest
Author: That mAd wrIter
Someone who loves how Steve Smith from being Australia's future Shane Warne has become present Don Bradman, gets inspired by Anderson's longevity, gets awed with Kohli's drive and Southee's bowling action. Never gets excited with stats and records, and believes in instincts, and always questions spinners bowling with the new ball.
