Jasprit Bumrah

For a long time, India was a country that was only known for producing world-class batters and wily spinners. Presently, the Indian team is equally renowned around the world for their potent crop of fast bowlers. One of the most prolific of the lot is Gujarat's Jasprit Bumrah.

It was a usual overseas tour, a usual struggle, and it just seemed like the best possible moment for Bumrah to enter the scene. With Bhuvneshwar Kumar suffering an injury, Bumrah made his debut in the fifth ODI against Australia in Sydney in 2016. Bumrah made an immediate impression with two wickets, and it has been a fantastic ride ever since for the India seamer. 

Until that fifth ODI, Bumrah was a domestic and IPL bowler who excited fans with his unorthodox slinging action. It is a bowling action that’s hard to teach. Upon scrutiny, it is a result of modern-day tennis and street cricket. The coaches must be lauded for not tampering with the unique aspect of bowling. It has been very common for coaches to stick to traditional methods and try to bring in unique talents into the old-school web, but Bumrah was lucky.

Bumrah’s IPL side, the Mumbai Indians (MI), have always been known for unearthing unknown talent, and a lot of that credit has to go to the former Indian coach and MI scout John Wright. It was Wright who identified Bumrah during the 2013 Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy. Although Bumrah made a superb entry into IPL cricket against Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) in 2013 by dismissing Virat Kohli as part of his three-wicket haul, He never became a regular member of the MI set-up until the 2016 season. However, the academy of learning, the IPL, allowed Bumrah to learn from Sri Lanka’s Lasith Malinga, especially with respect to death-over bowling.

With IPL opportunities not on his side, Bumrah worked his way up through some solid outings in domestic cricket. In the 2015 season, the pace bowler starred across the three domestic formats and even helped Gujarat lift the Vijay Hazare Trophy by scalping 21 wickets in just nine matches.

Going back to the India tour of Australia during the 2015-16 season, Bumrah’s rise was quick. Bumrah got another break as he was announced as the replacement for the injured Mohammad Shami in the T20I squad. He made best use of the opportunity by finishing the three-match T20I series as the leading wicket-taker with 6 scalps. More good performances saw him make it into the 2016 World T20 squad.

All this while, the Indian selectors would have been tempted to give Bumrah a Test cap, but it was only in South Africa in 2018 that he was able to make his maiden appearance in the long format of the game. The skiddy pacer made an immediate impression in red-ball cricket and led India to a win in Johannesburg before helping the team seal a historic 2-1 series victory in Australia. In between these tours, Bumrah also had a productive series against England, in which he picked up 14 wickets in three matches. There were a lot of preconceived notions about Bumrah being more of a white-ball bowler, but he broke those stereotypes in a matter of just 12 months. 

As a reward for such performances, Bumrah was named in both the ICC ODI and Test Teams of the Year in 2018. Going into the World Cup year in 2019, naturally, there were a lot of expectations from Bumrah, and he did deliver by picking up 18 wickets in nine matches.

Post-tournament, Bumrah sizzled against the West Indies by registering figures of 5/7 in a Test before taking a hat-trick in the next match. 

At the IPL level, Bumrah has grown into a player who is regarded as a cornerstone of the success of Mumbai Indians. The composure and skill shown by Bumrah against Chennai Super Kings in the final of IPL 2019 were lauded by one and all as he went on to bag the ‘Man of the Match’ award for his exemplary spell. In the latest edition of the IPL, Bumrah got the better of Kohli, and he jumped to the third spot in the tally of most dismissals of Kohli by a single bowler. Bumrah has always been in the charts for the highest wicket-taker in the cash-rich league. In the 2020 IPL held in the UAE, Bumrah scalped 27 wickets in just 15 matches and followed it up with 21 and 15 wickets in the next two seasons, respectively.

While Bumrah’s career was flowing on the lines of a fairytale, a back injury ruled him out of the 2022 T20 World Cup and further kept him out of action for almost 11 months. In this period, he missed several assignments, with India feeling his absence in the World Test Championship 2021–23 final versus Australia.

Bumrah returned to action in the T20I series against Ireland in August 2023, and it seemed as if he was never away. Match by match, he started to operate at his best, giving it his all and making up for the matches he missed due to the injury.

Bumrah paired up with Mohammad Shami and Mohammed Siraj in the ODI World Cup 2023, forming a never-seen-before Indian pace trio. With his fiery pace and on-point lines and lengths, Bumrah ticked all boxes, emerging as one of India’s biggest match-winners. He took 20 wickets in 11 matches at an impressive economy of 4.06.

From being a skinny teenager to strengthening himself physically, Bumrah has come a long way. Bumrah is one of the only four cricketers to hold a BCCI A+ contract, alongside Virat Kohli, Ravindra Jadeja, and Rohit Sharma.

(As of March 2024)