Jasprit Bumrah: England witnesses a rare talent at the peak of his powers

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The clouds were heavy, the floodlights shone down on Headingley and conditions were perfect for the curious cricketing phenomenon of swing bowling. Enter the master of the art, Jasprit Bumrah.

The first over of England’s reply to India’s 471 in this first Test said everything about the threat posed by the No 1-ranked bowler in the world and arguably one of the greatest of all time. It was fast and furious, but above all, it was pure sporting theatre.

This famous old cricketing arena was buzzing with anticipation at the first sight in this series of the biggest danger to England’s hopes and the biggest box office attraction of five Tests in the next six weeks.

Bumrah is as unorthodox as he is brilliant. He starts his run up, short by fast bowling standards, by walking three or four steps before stuttering towards the crease and delivering the ball with a hyper-extended right elbow that takes him almost half a metre closer to the batter at the point of delivery.

His right arm ends up virtually between his legs as he gets his pace and movement from a last split-second whippy explosion of energy. There is perhaps a shortage of elegance, but no shortage of potency and sheer drama.

Immediately here, Bumrah gained significant swing through the air with the new ball — which so often seems weather dependent but in truth owes more to the skill of the bowler — while taking aim at England opener Zak Crawley.

The first three balls swung away from Crawley at high pace, the fourth did so dramatically, and the fifth was somehow steered by the batter to the boundary.

Then, with his sixth delivery timed at 88 miles per hour while gaining an extraordinary two degrees of swing, Bumrah shaped to angle the ball in at Crawley’s body before it again swung away, taking the edge and being pouched at slip.

It was Bumrah at his very best. It was the perfect example of a rare talent at the peak of his powers. It was simply unplayable.

(Darren Staples/AFP via Getty Images)

While Bumrah was bowling during a majestic opening spell of five overs on Saturday, he was performing at a higher level than anyone else on either side. It was as if the 31-year-old from Ahmedabad was playing a different game.

England know all about Bumrah. He first played against them in 2018, but it was last year when he destroyed them, taking 19 wickets in just four Tests during the 4-1 Indian home victory that remains the biggest setback of England’s ‘Bazball’ era.

He has become a master with both red ball and white, equally as potent in Test cricket and the Indian Premier League, and before this game had taken 205 wickets in his 45 Tests at an average of 19.40 apiece.

Bumrah could have been captaining India here in place of Sharma, but told the India selectors he could not guarantee playing in more than three of the five matches of this congested series to protect his fitness. He contributes more than enough with the ball. The leader of the Indian attack had Ben Duckett dropped during that explosive opening spell on the second day of this Test before returning to take the other England opener’s wicket, bowled with the help of an inside edge onto the stumps.

Then, most crucially, the best bowler in the world dismissed the No 1 ranked batter just before the close when Joe Root was lured by the uncertainty of where the ball was moving into pushing at Bumrah outside off-stump and edging to slip.

He would have got Harry Brook, too, had Bumrah not inexplicably overstepped for the third time in the last over of the day, a no-ball ruling out the subsequent catch. But the game is fascinatingly poised with England at 209-3, 262 behind India, and Ollie Pope unbeaten on 100 after also being dropped, in his case on 60, off Mohammed Siraj.

(George Wood/Getty Images)

But it is Bumrah who will carry India’s hopes into the third day on Sunday and throughout the rest of what is already developing into an absorbing series.

So, what is it like to face this unorthodox genius? “What makes him so hard is he’s much quicker than people think,” former England all-rounder Moeen Ali tells The Athletic.

“Because of the slowness of his run up and stutter, people don’t think it’s going to be too quick, but he’s elastic in his action, particularly in the way he releases the ball.

“It makes him so different. Other bowlers could probably do what he does, but it’s the control he has over his wrist to get the ball going in and away, especially in England with the red ball. When he releases the ball, it’s at a completely different angle to where it finishes.

“I remember AB de Villiers (former South Africa batter) telling me Bumrah was the one bowler he’s faced where he didn’t know where the ball was going. AB was always ahead of all bowlers, but Bumrah was the one guy that he didn’t know what was coming. He could bowl anything.”

Keaton Jennings was one of Bumrah’s first high-profile Test victims during that 2018 summer, being bamboozled by a delivery in Southampton that looked like it would swing away from the left-hander before clattering into his stumps. It was an early sign of things to come.

“He had emerged by then, but he didn’t quite have the reputation he has today,” former Lancashire captain Jennings tells The Athletic. “That ball at Southampton was the first, I think, he’d bowled in Test cricket with more than 1.2 degrees of swing.

“The thing that made it outstanding was that everything in his setup told me the ball would leave me as a left-hander. The three balls previously had gone away quite rapidly, and then there was no visual change to that ball. It just hooped back into me.

“I think it’s late wrist movement that does it, but visually everything tells the batter it is going to leave you and then it doesn’t. I was going to cut it and then the next thing I knew it had hit me on the inside of my knee.”

Jennings’ fellow left-hander Ali was playing in that Test and made a quick decision as to what to do next. “Keaton didn’t see the ball that got him, so as I was walking in, I decided I was going to play every ball as an inswinger and then if it went away, I would just try and deal with it,” said Ali.

“You may nick it, but at least that way I knew I wasn’t going to be bowled or lbw! With certain bowlers, you can’t cover all options, so you accept all you can do is narrow it down to one mode of dismissal. If you nick one, you nick one. That helped me more than if I’d tried to pick every ball because it’s so difficult to see.

“I didn’t score many against Bumrah, but he didn’t get me out in red-ball cricket. There was one game (the fourth Test of 2021) when he hit me on the foot and I was plumb, but the umpire gave me not out. For whatever reason, they didn’t review it.

“In white ball cricket, you can’t see his slower ball, and in red ball, it’s the swing. He’s got a very quick bouncer, too, and he’s very good at yorkers. He’s a modern great.”

(George Wood/Getty Images)

Former Australian all-rounder Moises Henriques believes that ‘elastic’ arm holds the key to Bumrah’s success. “I think what makes him so good is how far in front of his landing foot his arm gets,” Henriques tells The Athletic.

“That basically shortens the wicket for him. It obviously reduces the time the batter can react, even though it might not increase speed.

“And he has such a big separation of limbs. Both his arms are abnormally straight, he gets them up in the air, and they look like they’re going all over the place. I guess you’d see that if you ever observe javelin throwers or baseball pitchers.

“He gets that maximum separation, which allows like a big sort of catapult reaction, and he’s able to generate ridiculous speed from such a short run up.

“While he may have been blessed with some genetics, his greatest skill is his accuracy and consistency, not just the fact he’s a bit left-field. There are a lot of strange actions out there, but they’re not necessarily effective.”

There was plenty to enjoy in Leeds on Saturday, with the equally unorthodox and equally dynamic India batter Rishabh Pant becoming the third century-maker of the visitors’ innings and celebrating with a somersault.

Then there was Pope repelling Bumrah and company at a time when his position at No 3 in the England order is under threat like never before from the emerging Jacob Bethell.

But most of all, there was Bumrah, who finished the day with a snorter of a bouncer to the reprieved Brook. There will be plenty more to come from the modern great.

Additional reporting by Nick Miller

(Top photo: George Wood/Getty Images)

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