Jasprit Bumrah celebrates after the dismissal of Bangladesh’s Sabbir Rahman during the match between India and Bangladesh. (AP Photo) There are few sights in world cricket that’s more compelling than a Jasprit Bumrah yorker. Such has been his control that someone on Twitter had cheekily suggested he could bowl this delivery even in his sleep. For the 25-year-old, achieving this mastery has come after hours of intense practice at the nets.
“I do it again and again and again at the nets. So the more you do it, you get decent at it. You can’t master it,” was Bumrah’s assessment after his yorkers ended Bangladesh’s World Cup campaign. Mashrafe Mortaza’s team was not the only ones to be at the receiving end of Bumrah’s toe-crushers. He even sent his teammate Vijay Shankar back home with a delivery which injured his toe while bowling in the nets. Despite his unmatched control, the 25-year-old has not quite achieved breathtaking success with this delivery in this show-piece event so far.
READ | You can’t master it: Jasprit Bumrah on yorkers
Barring the match against Bangladesh, most of his wickets have been orchestrated through either length or slower deliveries. To put things into perspective, only three of his 14 scalps in this tournament were nailed with his trademark delivery. This has not diminished his venom by any stretch. Through the course of the eight league matches, he has reaffirmed his status as the jewel in Virat Kohli’s crown.
Jasprit Bumrah and Virat Kohli celebrate after a wicket against Bangladesh. (Source: Reuters/File)Yorkers from hell
Bumrah has been a tad unlucky to not get wickets with the yorker. Everything just fell into place against Bangladesh at Edgbaston though. He snapped three of his four scalps through these full and wickedly fast deliveries aimed at the block-hole. Sample the two back- to-back wickets he took to end Bangladesh’s vigil. So furious was the delivery to Rubel Hossain that he had no chance to bring his bat down. Similarly, No.11 batsman Mustafizur Rahman was barely contemplating the task at hand, by which time Bumrah’s bullseye dislodged his off-stump. The banality with which he whipped out these yorkers was almost mind-boggling.
READ | ‘Bumrah is the bowler my generation dreamt of’: India pacer wins praise online
“Whenever I practice in the nets, I practice every situation, be it with the new ball, be it with the old ball, bowling at the death,” Bumrah said after India’s win over Bangladesh. “So if I have ticked all of the boxes in the net, it’s then all about execution (in the match) and keeping a clear head. If the work ethic is good, I think the execution feels much easier in the game,” he explained.
Drying up the runs
With 14 scalps at an average of a shade over 21 in the ongoing World Cup so far, Bumrah is not in the list of the top wicket-takers. However, he still is Virat Kohli’s go-to man — either stemming opposition team’s belligerence upfront or providing crucial breakthroughs in the middle or death overs. For all talk on Bumrah’s pace and searing yorkers, his impressive economy rate of 4.46 is something that’s least talked about. In the death overs, he enjoys an economy rate of 5.71, putting him below only Andrew Flintoff and Andrew Hall as the most parsimonious bowlers between overs 40-50 in ODIs since 2000, according to Cricviz.
Jasprit Bumrah celebrates the dismissal of Bangladesh’s Sabbir Rahman, one of his four scalps in Birmingham. (AP)In this World Cup, he and Mitchell Starc have been the two most difficult bowlers to get away. Even when England openers Jason Roy and Jonny Bairstow went on the rampage at Edgbaston, they gave their due to Bumrah, so much so that he even bowled a maiden and conceded just 44 runs from his 10 overs. According to Cricviz, just 7% of his deliveries at the death against England were on a good length, while 57% were fullish and 36% short of a length.
This reaffirmed why he is such a difficult bowler to get away. Against Bangladesh, he went wicket-less in his first spell, but Kohli brought him back in the middle overs immediately after the dismissal of Liton Das. The pacer responded with quick scalps of Mosaddek Das and Sabbir Rahman.
Choke-hold at the death
Virat Kohli has used his spearhead pretty efficiently in this World Cup, especially in the death overs. After his opening burst and the usual two-over crack for a breakthrough in the middle overs, Kohli has not held Bumrah back for the final over of matches where they are bowling second.
Jasprit Bumrah celebrates taking the wicket of South Africa’s Hashim Amla (Source: Reuters)Classic case was the match against Afghanistan where Bumrah was summoned to bowl the 47th and 49th overs. This was not because Kohli did not have the confidence in his strike bowler. On the contrary, the thinking was Bumrah would hit the bullseye in the penultimate over, which would give Mohammad Shami enough runs to defend in the final over. “In the end, the communication was to finish Bumrah in the 49th over so that Shami had enough to defend in the final over,” Kohli concurred.
