The host broadcaster’s stump mic in Perth has unhindered clarity unlike the occasionally sparse visuals during replays that nipped a promising KL Rahul’s innings in the bud. As Steve Smith arrived at the crease, Rishabh Pant was in his element. “The legend is pressured,” chirped the Indian wicketkeeper.
A ball later, Smith was gone. Jasprit Bumrah made one jag back a mile to trap the former Australia captain leg-before. The stand-in India captain was making the ball talk. In the commentary box, Wasim Akram was ecstatic. “He (Bumrah) is the world’s best bowler,” the legendary former Pakistan quick screamed. That was validation.
Bumrah is placed third in the ICC Test bowling rankings, behind Kagiso Rabada and Josh Hazlewood. Who cares! To paraphrase Mark Knopfler, he was giving the Australian batsmen a shiver in the fading light at the Optus Stadium. It felt like he had Smith at his beck and Marnus Labuschagne at his call.
The fabled WACA is just a short walk from the Optus Stadium. It is the spiritual home of Dennis Lillee. It’s not known if the great man paid a visit to the new stadium to watch the first day’s play of the first Test between India and Australia. Even watching the action on telly, he must have nodded in approval, notwithstanding his nationality and a redoubtable Aussie swagger. It’s a fast bowlers’ club where Bumrah sits cheek by jowl with the likes of Lillee, Akram, Malcolm Marshall and other all-time greats of the game.
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Back in 2018, during Bumrah’s first Test series Down Under, Lillee had compared the Indian speedster with Jeff Thomson. “He (Bumrah) is very different from other pacers, which reminds me of another fast bowler of my era, who was very different from everyone else – Jeff Thomson,” Lillee had said. In Perth, as he was making bowling feel like music, Bumrah’s action was dissected by the experts. As awkward as it might be, there’s no faux shtick in the whole process – from his run-up to loading, delivery and follow-through. Bumrah’s wrist does the magic.
“What Bumrah does is 101 per cent correct,” former Pakistan fast bowler Aaqib Javed, who is currently a selector and Pakistan’s white-ball coach, told this correspondent a few years ago. “Don’t look into how he is approaching the crease. Look at the end product and that’s perfect. Very few fast bowlers use the height so well. Very few of them transfer weight so smoothly. Also, from his run-up to delivery release, Bumrah’s entire approach is completely linear, using his energy in a straight direction. It gives him more power. To me, he has the best action in the business.”
Coming back to Lillee, watching Bumrah, maybe his mind raced back to a time when India had Kapil Dev and a few other medium pacers around him, bowling dibbly-dobblies. The Australian was given the responsibility to groom fast bowlers at the MRF Pace Foundation. It took time, a couple of generations to be precise. But Lillee and the MRF Pace Foundation’s influence wasn’t limited to Chennai only.
Bumrah is the fulcrum of a process that started with Javagal Srinath followed by Zaheer Khan and other fast bowlers. But no one is like the smiling assassin, for he is one of a kind. Bumrah is someone whom Andy Roberts told: “You could have taken the new ball in our XI.”
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