It’s not as though this series wasn’t already about Jasprit Bumrah. Since the very first evening of the first Test, when he tore up Australia’s top order in the fading light of Perth, he has been both the threat and the act of making good on it. Eight wickets there, nine in Brisbane, still a chance of nine in Melbourne, even managing four in Adelaide when his team’s batting failures effectively kept him to one bowling innings.
But watching a sequence of the best at their best, the marvels don’t become less marvellous. Bumrah’s fourth day in Melbourne, where for a few hours he turned the Test match India’s way from seemingly nowhere, was seeing someone at the very top of their game. Perhaps that’s what watching Brian Lara bat in 1994 might have felt like.
