LEEDS TEST
On Day 3 in Leeds, Bumrah claimed his 14th five-fer in Tests © Getty
There’s a memorable image from the IPL 2019 final that captures Jasprit Bumrah’s calm leadership under pressure: the moment he comforted his Mumbai Indians teammate Quinton de Kock after a crucial bye slipped through in the penultimate over. Bumrah’s wry smile as he steadied a crestfallen de Kock spoke volumes about his unshakeable composure.
Fast forward to a very different arena, a tense Test match at Headingley, where Bumrah once again demonstrated that trademark coolness. Despite an unusually sloppy day in the field for India, with five catches dropped in a single innings, Bumrah kept coming back, creating more chances with unwavering control of his lengths. Even as frustration threatened, he managed to claim his 14th five-fer in the format, proving his mettle when it mattered most.
Reflecting on the momentary frustration that comes with dropped catches, Bumrah explained, “Yeah, just for a second. But you understand that you can’t really sit down and cry, isn’t it? You have to move forward with the game. So, what I look to do is not to take it too far in my head and try and quickly forget it because all of them are also new to the game.
“Sometimes the ball is difficult to sight and nobody is dropping the catch purposely. Everybody is trying really hard. It does happen. So, I don’t want to create a scene or put more pressure on the fielder that I’m angry, I’m kicking the box or I’m doing something. It’s okay. It’s part and parcel of the game. Obviously, if it [catches] would have been taken earlier, that’s good, but people will learn from this experience.”
Over the past three years, Bumrah’s journey has been anything but linear. He’s hit spectacular peaks, reaffirming his status as the most complete fast bowler in the world, but those highs have been punctuated by two significant injury layoffs. The latest, a back injury that kept him out for three months post the Australia series, has changed the way India manage their premier pacer, especially in the context of a demanding five-Test series. He is expected to take strategic breaks through the series to manage his body. But once he steps onto the field, he says there’s no room in his head for calculations about workload.
“No. You don’t look at what is going to happen in the future,” Bumrah said. “You are there in the ground, in the moment. You have to do a job. At the moment, I’m trying to assess the wicket. I’m trying to assess what is happening. What are my options? How is the wicket behaving? Who is the batter here? What is he thinking? How do I outsmart him? What does the team require?
“I look at all of those things at that moment. I was not thinking about what will happen. How many games am I supposed to play at this moment? Focusing on the Test match. When the match is over, then you think about all these combinations.”
That clarity of thought, to shut out the future, ignore the chatter, hasn’t come overnight. It’s been shaped by a career built proving the naysayers wrong. “I’ve always wanted to play cricket for India. I’ve played cricket on my belief. I’ve come to every format on my belief. Because people have only said no to me. First they said, you won’t be able to play. Then they said you’ll play for only six more months… eight more months. I’ve been playing international cricket for 10 years. I’ve been playing IPL for 12-13 years. People still say, you’ll go now. I say, ‘keep waiting.’
“I’m not going to think about it. They say, you’ll go. I say, let’s see. I’ll play as long as God has written. I’ll do my best preparation. And then I’ll leave it. I’ll try to take the work that God has given me forward. And I’ll try to take Indian cricket forward.”
It’s not just the doubters Bumrah has learned to tune out, even the weight of admiration, the expectations that come with his standing as the world’s best all-format bowler, are carefully kept at arm’s length. “I know there’s a lot of things that go on in social media, expectations, but I try and stay away from that because I don’t want somebody else’s thoughts to creep into my mind. Obviously, it’s not as easy to say that, okay, just keep applying that. But I try and stay away from all of that.
“If I start to clear everybody else’s expectation, and they look at me, that this is my name, and this is my ranking, and this is how I’m supposed to bowl, then I’m carrying a lot of baggage, and that’s very difficult to carry. I’m a human being. I make mistakes. And everybody will make mistakes. But I look at myself. If I’ve ticked all boxes, I’ve given it my absolute best. I ask myself this question at night. Did I give it my absolute best? And if the answer is yes, I quietly go back to sleep.”
Meanwhile, reacting to the Headingley match situation which hangs on a knife edge at the end of Day 3, with India ahead by 96 with eight wickets in hand, Bumrah said he would want the batters to score as many runs as possible to give a bowling cushion on what is still a good surface. “As many [runs] as we can. At this moment, it’s a pretty good wicket to bat. A little bit of two-pace is what we can see. But I don’t see any big demons in the wicket or massive deviation. Yes, due to the weather around, sometimes a new ball will swing, but that is what you expect in a Test wicket.
“But so far, we’re not seeing any demons in the wicket or any funny business that is happening in the wicket. [We should score] as much as we can, we’d like to keep our wicket open. So that gives us the cushion and try to go for wickets [in the fourth innings].”
© Cricbuzz
