At the outset, a disclaimer. This isn’t a comparison piece. This isn’t about who is better, who is more accomplished, who is more dangerous and threatening. This is about celebrating the genius of a champion who is only 34 Tests young but has already staked his claim to be the greatest practitioner of his craft in the country’s history.
Three of India’s four most prolific Test wicket-takers are spinners – Anil Kumble (619), Ravichandran Ashwin (499) and Harbhajan Singh (417). The odd one out is the peerless Kapil Dev, who signed off in 1994 with 434 Test victims, then the highest in the five-day game. Two other quicks boast upwards of 300 wickets – Ishant Sharma and Zaheer Khan (both 311). The other leading pacers are Javagal Srinath (236), Mohammed Shami (229) and Umesh Yadav (170).
Jasprit Bumrah has only 155 wickets, only being used advisedly. Currently, there are 15 Indians with more Test wickets. Even among pacers, he is just the seventh highest wicket-taker. And yet, one is compelled to wonder if he will sign off as India’s greatest red-ball pacer of all time. Crazy, right?
Then again, that’s Bumrah. He drives people crazy.
He drives batters crazy with conventional and reverse swing, with sudden lifters and toe-threatening yorkers, with wicked slower ones and ripping leg-cutters. He drives Indian fans crazy with his sustained assault on the three stumps the batter is trying to defend. He drives the media crazy by being the good boy, as far removed from a controversial, click-baity headline as snow from the desert. He drives opposition support staff and analysts crazy by conjuring impossible angles and inexplicable outcomes. Jasprit Bumrah, he is the king of crazy.
So, Bumrah has picked up another Player of the Match award in his latest Test. Six for 45 in the first innings, hostile and relentless, an unstoppable force of nature that blew England to smithereens with a wicked smile. Three for 46 in the second, three different modes of dismissal – a leg before, a caught and bowled, a clean bowled. Reverse swing. Slower ball. But hey, that’s what Bumrah does, right? So why now? Why are we invoking the pantheon? Why are we talking even Umesh and Shami and Srinath, let alone Zaheer and Ishant and the big daddy of them all, the Palmolive man, Kapil Dev?
Because. Because that’s what Bumrah does to us too. He drives us crazy with his exploits. He leaves us searching for adjectives, for superlatives, sometimes for just words, any meaningful words that can be strung together in a pithy sentence. How do you describe his sheer joy at a scalp in the bag? How do you do justice to the reaction of a batter who has been humiliated in full public view, his stumps scattered and his ego damaged almost beyond repair, unable to keep out a pinpoint yorker that would have crushed toe if Ollie Pope hadn’t been agile enough to get his feet out of the way?
Like Bumrah, Kapil too started as a tearaway pacer before quickly realizing that if he aspired for a long international career, he had better sacrifice pace and add other strings to his bow – unlike now, India didn’t possess the depth in fast bowling that allowed them to rotate their pacers. Bumrah is fortunate in that regard, but he has also found ways to make his fortune. Forget about the numbers, for a minute. For sheer impact, Bumrah is unmatched. He has transformed mindsets, he has unwittingly encouraged young kids to try to ape his run-up and his action. Statutory warning: Stay away from that. There is, and can only be, one Bumrah.
Jasprit Bumrah’s numbers staggering
Now, to the numbers. Bumrah’s Test average is 20.19 which, for want of a better word, is ludicrous. Of those with at least 150 Test wickets, only one man has a better average, the extraordinary Sydney Barnes, who took 189 wickets in 27 games at 16.43. He currently picks up 4.56 wickets per Test, which is a very impressive stat considering India have been playing five specialist bowlers for most of his six-year Test career. Extrapolating those figures isn’t ideal because sport doesn’t operate in such straight lines, but if Bumrah goes on to play 100 Tests and continues to strike at the current rate, he will finish with 456 victims.
That’s unlikely to happen. Bumrah is 30, is an all-format player and has already had a stress fracture of the back. But it’s fun to think of what might be if he gets there. Just as it’s fun to envision him at one end and Kapil at the other, competing with and feeding off each other. What a sight that.
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