ArticlesIPL 2022

IPL 2022 Classics #6: Jasprit Bumrah’s Hit-the-deck bustle!

One of the hallmarks of sporting giants is making their opponents perform worse. That is exactly what Bumrah did in that night’s game against Kolkata Knight Riders. Bumrah brought fear to the batters with the speed and the angle through which he was bowling those scary short balls.

Earlier in the tournament, Bumrah wasn’t up to his mark. His form directly affected Mumbai’s confidence. KKR’s game fetched him the precious vibe he needed for a long time.

KKR looked spectacular with 136/3 (14) onboard in the match 56 of the IPL 2022. At that point, 8 per over would have taken KKR over 180. In fact, 200 felt so reachable considering the batters yet to walk in for Kolkata.

Jasprit Bumrah started with his very own toe-crusher to Andre Russell. The next ball was a well-planned short ball, but the ball got an extra pace than usual. With his hard-hitting mode, Russell got lost in Bumrah’s pace and top-edged.

Then, from over the wicket, Bumrah gave no time for Nitish Rana to react with a searing bouncer and got a feather from Rana’s glove to Ishan Kishan. Undoubtedly this was the best wicket of the match. A bowler completely outplayed a well-set batter.

The vibrant Bumrah didn’t wait so long. He scalped Sheldon Jackson’s wicket in the very first ball of his third over – again an over-paced short ball that was angled towards the batter. Sheldon was in no way ready to handle the line, threw his bat, and got caught in mid-wicket.

Pat Cummins was the next batter on the list of Bumrah. Again a zippy short ball gave no room for Cummins to get his sweet spot in the ball, trapped in short midwicket. In-form Bumrah is like a quagmire for batters; you should not get into it. But Cummins fell into it very easily with his ego. He could have played him safely to get used to the next over of Daniel Sams.

Sunil Narine’s wicket could have been the favorite for Bumrah. For the left-hander, Bumrah came from around the wicket. Narine did nothing but cover his face with the bat from the mind-blogging bouncer of Bumrah. A running catch from Bumrah made the crowd go wild and mad. Bumrah was celebrating wholeheartedly, showing how much it meant for the Indian pace-head.

A player with multifarious resources can never dwell on a grey patch for a long time. Bumrah is a real-time example of it. He has everything a bowler requires in all formats of cricket. Slowers, Yorkers, Bouncers, Swingers, name anything a bowler needs – Jasprit Bumrah will be on top of everything.

All five wickets were banged in short. On that night, it was the short balls that were working well. Bumrah found that from his first wicket itself. The technically shrewd Bumrah made good use of the pace from the pitch. Also, KKR batters were not so comfortable playing short balls in their previous match against LSG; this could have been a point noted by Bumrah. On the whole, the Indian superstar has scratched all the earlier negatives in a single night.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *