Jasprit Bumrah

Frankly, I never ever thought that I would ever be writing an article on Jasprit Bumrah; except for his speed, he seemed to demonstrate nothing that had the making of a good fast bowler. There is no smoothness in his run up as he breaks his run up speed and gallops the last few steps, his delivery action is absolutely abnormal and to add to all this, he was so consistent in overstepping the bowling mark that on some very vital occasions he could not get a wicket because he had no balled. However, as things stand today, Jasprit Jasbir Singh Bumrah is the ICC’s highest-ranked bowler and seems destined to stay at the pinnacle for some time.

The accuracy with which this cricketer can bowl yorkers at the most crucial moments to contain batsmen of the highest calibre is absolutely surprising since his bowling action appears to be all jumbled up. Some cricketing experts have attributed this gift to Jasprit having played much of his early cricket with the tennis ball where the only good ball to any batsman has to be a yorker. Nothing can be far from truth. The weight and the aero-dynamics of a canvas ball and a cricket ball are so different that bowling well with one in no way guarantees a good performance with the other. In fact, even a red ball and a white ball do not behave in the same fashion so a tennis ball has absolutely no comparison. To generate accuracy with a tennis ball, a fast bowler would have to bend his elbow more than what he may like to do while bowling with a cricket ball. (Cricket laws permit fifteen degree bending of the elbow for pace bowlers).

It is the Indian Premier League that exposed Jasprit Bumrah’s unique talent wherein he continued to contain even the best batmen in the death overs by bowling yorker after yorker.

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