After a generation of fiery fast bowlers like Ambrose, Walsh, Mcgrath, Gillespie, Wasim, Waqar, Alan Donald, Dale Steyn and swing specialists Anderson and Broad, who make a batsman, sway, swivel, sweat and smell the leather all the time, we have once-in-a generation bowler, who can absolutely bowl any type ball at any point of time.
Starting his career a decade back, he has broken open every format of the game, Tests, ODIs and T20s and made opposition fear and plan against him. With 500+ international wickets, Bumrah has been the backbone of Indian cricket for the last decade.
Many Test and One-Day Internationals brilliance aside, here is a look at two of his feats in most recent T20 World Cups.
T20 World Cup 2024
Having scored just at run-a-ball on a sluggish New York drop-in pitch, all our friends in our community gathered to cheer for the Indian team to defend this low total. Bumrah’s 3 crucial wickets including Babar and Rizwan broke open the game and helped India defend this super modest total.
With our friends gathered one more time and peering through a small mobile phone in a different setting, we watched as India had to defend 30 runs in as many balls. What gave us absolute comfort was the fact that Bumrah still had to bowl 12 balls out of the 30. And save us indeed he did, as he bowled a superb 16th over with a wicket and a run to strangulate the Proteas batting line up and set up an absolute fire-cracker of a win with all of us screaming our throats out.
T20 World Cup 2026
With India having blasted a 250+ score, it only seemed like a formality that we would win the semi-final against England yesterday. But an absolute screamer of an innings from centurion Jacob Bethell nearly tilted the favor in favor of the Brits. The most crucial part of the game came in 18th over of the England innings when they had to score nearly 50 runs from 18 balls. With Bumrah bowling unplayable pin-point Yorkers and low-ball full tosses, the English batsman very cleverly played safe against Bumrah and thereby choked themselves with too much to get from the final overs.
Player-of-the-match Sanju Samson’s words rang true, when he mentioned that the true POTM should have been Bumrah, who with great cricketing intelligence and exceptional executional skills single-handedly won India the match.
Jasprit Bumrah, is just not a bowler, he is a game-changer. Do join me in wishing him and India all the best in the finals against New Zealand on Sunday.
