CHENNAI: A few gentle steps walking in. A jerk of the body at the start of the run-up. A brisk 12-14 paces to gather momentum, followed by that jump. As a batsman, one is used to facing different varieties of this routine. Not to what unfurls after that. Coupled with pace, it’s the movement of the arm and wrist which engages the bat in a touch-me-if-you-can contest with the ball.
In the Caribbean, Jasprit Bumrah has won this contest hands down. Unsound in technique and inadequate in temperament, batsmen fell to him in heaps, cutting hapless figures. Fast, accurate, hostile. India’s trump card is also unpredictable. In the age of digital dissection and micro-analysis, his craft is still to be decoded. Not that he was a lesser headache before he did it, the confidence to up the use of the out-swinger has made him a bigger menace.
If the away-going one was primarily responsible for reducing West Indies to 37/7 in the second innings of the first Test, doing maximum damage on Day 2 of the ongoing Test was his natural delivery that comes back into the right-hander. Unlike the out-swinger, which is more of a surprise weapon in Bumrah’s case, the incoming one is what batsmen prepare for when facing him. Tentative and caught at the crease, they still fell in quick succession to make it 22/5. Such spells shape the outcome of matches and it was no different in Antigua or Jamaica.
Always difficult to face because of the awkward arm action, ability to move it both ways makes Bumrah a potentially lethal proposition. He has developed almost unnatural control over movement, which becomes evident when bowled from over the stumps, the ball comes back into left-handers. The changes in wrist position required to do this is deceptive and hard to pick. After England opener Keaton Jennings was flummoxed last year, John Campbell and Darren Bravo found that out in this series. Add pace, slip in the yorkers and what you get is a combination batsmen the world over are struggling to come to terms with.
“It’s not just the action,” says keeper-turned-expert Deep Dasgupta.
“He would have been sorted out had that been the case. What makes Bumrah special is his reading and assessment of players, their technique and flaws. The out-swinger is difficult to pick because of his natural inward angle. And because he gets it to go both ways, batsmen have to play even if he’s bowling slightly outside off. There’s a lot of thought and hunger behind his success. He’s a cerebral guy. That makes him what he is.”
Short on wherewithal, motivation and incentives to play the longest version, the West Indies batsmen have turned out to be easy meat. None looked determined to stick around or see off the first spell and ended up repeating mistakes. But then, the 25-year-old has succeeded wherever he has played. Before going to the Caribbean islands, his aggregate was 49 wickets in 10 Tests in South Africa, England and Australia. Bumrah hits the bullseye wherever he plays.