Jasprit Bumrah is special. England’s batters on Saturday found out just how special.
With an incredible spell of reverse-swing, he put India in a strong position on the second day of the second Test.
After taking six for 45 in England’s first innings, he said there was no need for magical balls if the ball was reverse-swinging. He did produce magic on more than one occasion, though.
“The ball was relatively hard and reversing,” he said, when asked about the stunning yorker against Ollie Pope. “When the ball is reversing, you don’t need to bowl magical deliveries every ball.
“I bowled a few away-going deliveries, then I was thinking what I should bowl next. Should it be a length delivery coming in or should I go for a yorker? I hadn’t bowled a yorker till then so I decided to go with the yorker. It did swing a lot, the execution was good, and I was happy.”
One had to learn how to reverse-swing in India, he said. “If you want to take wickets in India, you have to learn reverse-swing,” he said. “I probably learnt reverse-swing before I learnt conventional swing. You play a lot of cricket on slow wickets, you understand what you need to do.”
This is only his sixth Test in India. He had taken six for 61 to help India beat South Africa at Cape Town last month.
“When you play abroad, you know the wickets will assist,” Bumrah said. “Here in India, I have played less number of Test matches, but I have played a lot of First Class cricket. So I go back to those days and think about what I did to get wickets, back my ability and try to find answers.”
