Sports
Just how good is Jasprit Bumrah?
by Rex Clementine
On Saturday, in Barbados, with 30 runs needed off 30 balls with six wickets in hand, you sensed that the organizers had engraved the word ‘South’ in the ICC T-20 World Cup trophy. This was going to be South Africa’s first ever World Cup triumph.
Run a ball, with two of the games biggest entertainers – Heinrich Klassen and David Miller in the middle – this was going to be child’s play for South Africa. In a last desperate throw of the dice, Rohit Sharma handed the ball to Jasprit Bumrah. The rest, as they say, is history.
Bumrah is the finest bowler in the T-20 format. The blueprint India follow with him is couple of overs up front to take wickets with the new ball and two overs at the end of the innings to ensure the game is within India’s grasp.
But Rohit had to bring him on in the 16th over because the World Cup final was getting out of India’s hands. With a mix of yorkers, wide yorkers, cutters and bouncers Bumrah kept India in play conceding just four runs in the over.
This meant the equation now was 26 off 24 balls. Still within grasp. Klassen knew that Bumrah would be back for over number 18 so he had to take a few chances in the 17th over bowled by Hardik Pandya.
That’s the key with Bumrah. He will dry up the runs which means you will have to target other bowlers. Eventually you get out to that bowler trying to play it safe with the main bowler. Klassen took on Pandya and was caught behind and the game was wide open.
Bumrah returned for his final over and created mayhem with awkward angles making life difficult to the batters. He conceded just two runs and into the bargain accounted for Marco Jansen and South Africa were down to the tail.
A run a ball equation had suddenly become 20 runs in 12 balls and India had the resources to contain that.
This is what Lasith Malinga used to do so well for Sri Lanka. With the new ball he used to provide breakthroughs and then returned to the attack in the tail end of the innings winning Sri Lanka many games. Bumrah has borrowed a leaf out of Malinga.
Bumrah’s four overs in the World Cup final went for just 18 runs and produced two wickets. He richly deserved the Player of the Series award. His 30 overs in this World Cup had cost India just 124 runs, which is 4.17 runs. He claimed 15 wickets in eight games. His unorthodox action, raw pace and peculiar release point have caused much trouble to the batters.
Chennai Super King’s bowling acquisitions during the off-season paid immediate dividends as their four new bowlers took nine wickets between them to restrict Mumbai Indians to 155 for 9, a total that they ultimately chased down with ease but not without a hiccup against debutant left-arm wristspinner Vignesh Purthur, who is yet to represent his state side in senior cricket.
However, it was the other left-arm wristspinner, younger than Puthur but a veteran by comparison, who made the telling impact. Noor Ahmad registered his best IPL figures and the best figures for a CSK spinner against MI, 4 for 18, to capitalise on the inroads made b Khaleel Ahmed whose CSK debut was not too shabby either: wickets of the openers and analysis of 4-0-29-3.
CSK captain Ruturaj Gaikwad made the chase look like a walk in the park with 53 off 26, bringing the requirement down to a run a ball in the ninth over, but this is when they started losing wickets to Puthur, struggling to impart power into his slow wristspin. Three of them holed out in the deep, but Rachin Ravindra anchored the chase with 65 off 45 to see them home.
Khaleel is a dichotomous IPL bowler. He is worse than the average fast bowler during afternoon games, and better than the average fast bowler in night games. The only explanation for it is that there is a small window for movement with the new ball under lights, and he is a different beast when the ball moves. It showed in how he denied the openers a big hit with the little bit of movement that was available. The eventual dismissals looked soft – Rohit Sharma caught at forward square leg and Ryan Rickleton bowled off an inside edge – but they were the results of the pressure created by Khaleel himself.
To make it better for CSK, their returning homeboy R Ashwin took a wicket in his first over. There is not much mystery to the Ashwin who has returned to CSK after more than a decade, but his length was immaculate, making it a risk every time the batters wanted to attack him. He ended up with figures of 4-0-31-1, the wicket being that of Will Jacks inside the powerplay.
Down at 36 for 3 in 4.4 overs, MI needed something special from their two best batters, stand-in captain Suryakumar Yadav and Tilak Varma. The latter hit right back by taking two fours off Ashwin and then hitting two sixes off Ravindra Jadeja, against whom Suryakumar doesn’t enjoy a good match-up.
Noor then applied the handbrake with some elan. He was so difficult to pick even MS Dhoni was beaten by a mile when he turned one past Varma’s outside edge. That seed of doubt cast, he went back to what he does more often, turn the ball the other way at high speed. Suryakumar was beaten on the outside edge and stumped in a flash by Dhoni.
Debutant Robin Minz couldn’t get going and tried a desperate shot only to be caught at long-off. Tilak was beaten both in the air and off the pitch: caught on the crease, he had no time to adjust to the ball that turned back in and trapped him lbw. Noor came back at the death to bowl Naman Dhir around his legs.
Nathan Ellis took care of one of the former CSK players, Mitchell Santner, but the other, Deepak Chahar gave MI something to bowl at with a cameo of 28 off 15.
CSK made a surprise move of promoting Rahul Tripathi ahead of Gaikwad, but it didn’t last long as Chahar carried on from where he had left off with the bat, taking a wicket in his first over against CSK with a well-directed short ball.
Gaikwad, though, batted like a dream, taking down Trent Boult and both former colleagues, Chahar and Santner. S Raju, who is supposed to be a good death bowler, made an indifferent start with the new ball, and CSK ran away to 62 in the powerplay. The field spread, but Gaikwad kept going, hitting Jacks for a beautiful inside-out six against the turn, suggesting an easy pitch to bat on.
With just 82 needed off the last 13 overs, CSK would have wanted to register a big net-run-rate bonus, which is perhaps why they kept trying to hit Puthur’s slow left-arm wristspin for sixes. More than anything it was his slow pace and the slight slowness of then pitch that kept resulting in catches on the fence. Still, Gaikwad, Shivam Dube and Deepak Hooda is not a bad debut haul at all.
By now, it was almost like the home crowd was willing MI to take wickets so that they could get a glimpse of Dhoni with the bat. When Jacks bowled Sam Curran for 4 off 9, it drew a big cheer but the sight of Jadeja quelled the excitement.
The steepest the task got was 31 off the last four overs, but this is when MI gave CSK some pace to work with, and Jadeja immediately hit Boult for a four. Ravindra was the only batter to hit boundaries off Puthur: three sixes, all thanks to momentum generated by his use of feet to charge at the bowler. A run-out in the 19th over gave the Chepauk crowd what they wanted, they even got a six to seal the game, but off the bat of Ravindra as Dhoni stayed unbeaten on 0 off 2.
Brief scores:
Chennai Super Kings 158 for 6 in 19.1 overs (Rachin Ravindra 65*, Ruturaj Gaikwad 53, Ravindra Jadeja 17; Deepak Chahar 1-18, Will Jacks 1-32, Vignesh Puthur 3-32) beat Mumbai Indians 155 for 9 in 20 overs (Ryan Rickelton 13, Will Jacks 11, Suryakumar Yadav 29, Tilak Varma 31, Naman Dhir 17, Mitchell Santner 11, Deepak Chahar 28*; Noor Ahmad 4-18, Khaleel Ahmed 3-29, Nathan Ellis 1-28, Ravichandran Ashwin 1-31) by four wickets
[Cricinfo]
In IPL 2024, Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) took batting to dizzying heights. With Ishan Krishan’s addition to an already power-packed line-up, everyone wondered if they might be the first team to hit 300 in the IPL. In their opening fixture of IPL 2025, they seriously threatened to get there, thanks to Kishan’s 45-ball hundred on franchise debut and Travishek’s opening salvo. They eventually fell 14 short of 300, and just one short of the IPL record they had set last season, but it was another emphatic statement of their high intent and power.
Kishan is an upgrade over their previous No. 3 Rahul Tripathi. He seamlessly slotted into SRH’s line-up, clattering an unbeaten 106 off 47 balls, his first IPL ton. After Travis Head and Abhishek Sharma had helped SRH take 94 in the first six overs, the fifth-highest powerplay total, Kishan launched from there.
Rajasthan Royals (RR) made a decent fist of the chase, with Sanju Samson and Dhruy Jurel matching the intent and power of SRH’s batters with half-centuries. Late blows from Shimron Hetmyer, the only overseas batter in RR’s squad, contributed to a match aggregate of 528, the second highest in the IPL, but such a mammoth target was always going to unchaseable.
Brief scores:
Sunrisers Hyderabad 286 for 6 in 20 overs (Abhishek Sharma 24, Ishan Kishan 106*, Travis Head 67, Nitish Kumar Reddy 30, Heinrich Klassen 34; Maheesh Theekshana 2-52, Sandeep Sharma 1-51, Tushar Deshpande 3-44) beat Rajasthan Royals 242 for 6 in 20 overs (Dhruv Jurel 70, Sanju Samson 66, Nitish Rana 11, Shimron Heytmeyer 42, Shubnam Dubey 34*; Mohammed Shami 1-33, Simarjeet Singh 2-46, Adam Zampa 1-48, Harshal Patel 2-34) by 44 runs
[Cricinfo]
New Zealand’s fast bowlers crushed Pakistan in swinging conditions at Mount Maunganui and set up a massive 115-run win to help the home side clinch the series 3-1 with a match to spare. After chasing down 205 in Auckland to keep the series alive, Pakistan were all out in 16.2 on Sunday with New Zealand’s four-seam attack accounting for nine of the ten wickets. Jacob Duffy made early inroads, picking up three wickets inside the powerplay to dent Pakistan and they never recovered from the top-order collapse.
Earlier, Finn Allen top-scored with a 20-ball fifty and cameos fromTim Seifert and Michael Bracewell powered New Zealand to 220 for 6. New Zealand made the intent clear from the beginning as they raced to 79 for 1 in the powerplay. Even though there was a slowdown in the middle overs, New Zealand managed to post their second straight 200-plus total in the series, which proved too much for the visitors.
Pakistan’s chase never took off with New Zealand troubling them with swing and seam on offer. Unlike the game in Auckland, Pakistan couldn’t take advantage of the dew factor. The chase began with Will O’Rourke, playing his first match of the series, removing Mohammed Haris with an excellent delivery that nipped back in to disturb his stumps. Duffy then dismissed Hasan Nawaz, centurion from the last match, and captain Salman Agha in the second over to dent Pakistan. Zakary Foulkes, one of the two changes that New Zealand made to the XI, also struck instantly, as he cleaned up Shadab Khan in his first ball with an inswinger.
Eventually, Pakistan lost eight wickets for 56 runs. The game was all but over at the halfway stage of the chase even though the No.7 Abdul Samad fought a lone battle with his 30-ball 44.
Duffy came back for his final over and added one more wicket to his tally to end with 4 for 20 while Foulkes scalped three overall. Duffy is now the highest-wicket taker in the series with 11 wickets from four matches
Tim Seifert continued to give flying starts for New Zealand. He drove the second ball of the innings, a juicy half-volley from Shaheen Afridi, straight down the ground for four and followed it up with a six over long-on off Khushdil Shah in the next over. Abrar Ahmed’s first over, fourth overall, was the expensive one in the powerplay as Seifert smashed 6, 4, 6 in the 19-run over. The team’s fifty came up in 3.5 overs. But Pakistan got the breakthrough immediately as Haris Rauf was brought in for the fifth over with Seifert pulling a short ball to deep midwicket where Khushdil took a stunning low catch. New Zealand ended the powerplay at 79 for 1 – the second-highest powerplay total for any team against Pakistan in men’s T20Is. Seifert made a 22-ball 44.
Allen scored eight off his first six balls, but once the field was spread out, he took charge. Abrar, after his 19-run first over, conceded another 16 runs in his second as Allen hit him for two fours and a six. Allen continued his onslaught, slapping Shadab Khan for two fours and as many sixes in a 23-run 10th over to bring up his fifty off just 19 balls. But he perished the next delivery from Abbas Afridi after miscuing on to mid-off. From 134 for 2, New Zealand slipped to 149 for 5 as Pakistan bowled five boundary-less overs.
Rauf was the only Pakistan bowler to leak fewer than ten runs an over in the fourth T20I, as he returned 3 for 27 from his four overs.
Brief scores:
New Zealand 220 for 6 in 20 overs (Finn Allen 50, Mark Chapman 24, Daryl Mitchell 29, Michael Bracewell 46*, Tim Seifert 44; Abrar Ahmed 2-41, Haris Rauf 3-27, Abbas Afridi 1-38) beat Pakistan 105 all out in 16.2 overs (Irfan Khan 24, Abdul Samad 44; Will O’Rourke 1-29, Jacob Duffy 4-20, Zakary Foulkes 3-25, James Neesham 1-14, Ish Sodhi 1-15) by 115 runs
[Cricinfo]
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