When the victorious Indian team was felicitated on the lawns of the Wankhede Stadium on a balmy July evening last year, following their momentous triumph in the T20 World Cup , the emcee, during a chat with Virat Kohli, asked him, “I am thinking of starting a petition to declare Jasprit Bumrah a national treasure. Will you sign it?” Kohli’s response was an admiration laden “I will sign it right now”!
On Monday, the ICC rubber-stamped Kohli’s views. They crowned him with the ICC men’s Test Cricketer of the Year award. Just look at the stats: 71 wickets in 13 Tests at 14.92, a wicket every 30 balls and five five-fors. These are not just obscene numbers. These are cheat codes by someone who learnt the art of bowling by watching Pakistani greats Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis on TV and attempted to bowl fast with a hop-skip-walk-run-hurl action that should carry this disclaimer: “Don’t try this at home.”
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Already a man of many firsts, Bumrah also became the first Indian pacer to receive the honour and the sixth Indian after Rahul Dravid, Gautam Gambhir, Virender Sehwag, R Ashwin and Virat Kohli. He was also the first Indian fast bowler to be ranked No. 1 in Feb 2024 after a performance for the ages on a flat track in Vizag, where he blew England away with a spell of 6/45 in 71 balls in what was a reverse-swing tutorial.
Yes, the six-for included THAT Ollie Pope dismissal. The footage of that physics-defying delivery even made its way to two Coldplay concerts in Mumbai and Ahmedabad within a span of a week despite the event happening a year ago.
“Jasprit my beautiful brother/the best bowler in the whole of cricket/we do not enjoy/watching you destroy/England with wicket after wicket after wicket,” crooned Chris Martin on Bumrah’s home turf, Ahmedabad’s Narendra Modi Stadium on Sunday.
Bumrah, of course, was in attendance, and beamed away dressed in black. “Happy to have played a lot of Test cricket this year and many wickets have been special. But the one I took against England in Vizag, the Ollie Pope yorker, was really special because it changed the momentum in our favour,” Bumrah told the ICC in a video message.
Cape Town, Vizag, Dharamshala, Kanpur, Perth, Brisbane, Melbourne, the footprints of Bumrah’s genius in 2024 have kissed all these Test venues. Opposition batters like Usman Khawaja even coined a new dismissal type to describe what it felt like to be the man’s bunny. ‘Bumrah’d.’
In Australia, as he ran in spell after spell to single-handedly either keep India in the game or break contests open to end up with 32 scalps at a ridiculous 13.06, displaying sublime skill and miraculous control of length, experts and legendary former cricketers doing commentary spoke in awe and wondered if he was among the greatest ever to visit their shores.
The Australians are usually parsimonious in praise of rivals. But they also wax eloquent when they recognise genius. They did it with Sachin Tendulkar in 1992 and with Bumrah in 2024. “I think there were 15 of us who were really happy that he did not bowl today,” said a relieved Travis Head as a back injury prevented the Indian bowling talisman from taking the field on a spicy SCG pitch during Australia’s fourth innings of the fifth Test.
In an age where fast bowlers try and stay away from the longer formats to preserve themselves for the money-spinning T20 leagues around the world, Bumrah’s romance for Tests is refreshing. “This format has always been close to my heart, and I always wanted to play this format,” he told the ICC.
Former India pacer and bowling coach Paras Mhambrey, who is currently the bowling coach of Mumbai Indians, also told the MI website recently about how much Bumrah values the longest format. “He just doesn’t leave the ball.”
He also gave an insight into how Bumrah’s mind works. “When you sit in the dressing room thinking, ‘Oh this is what he should be doing now,’ invariably, he does exactly that the next ball. You understand he is thinking and reading the batters very well. I just hope I get to watch it for the next five years. We have to take care of him. He needs to be around for Indian cricket,” Mhambrey says in that same MI interview.
As reels of boys and girls bowling fast with a Bumrah action emerge from the hinterlands of India, you know why Bumrah needs to be around.
