Jasprit Bumrah and the art of answering questions

A lot has been written and said about Jasprit Bumrah’s brilliance over the years. Every time he does well now, you’d think you’d have to go through several rounds of mental gymnastics to come up with something new. But so continually evolving is his genius, that almost every performance gives you a fresh narrative of some sort.

At the Eden Gardens on Day One, Bumrah delivered yet another masterclass, this one coming at a crucial juncture in his journey.

Ever since he walked off the field at Old Trafford four months back, there were apprehensions about his long-term fitness and whether he could be relied upon to play enough games of cricket at the sustained level of excellence that had become synonymous with him.

He returned soon enough in the Asia Cup and played two Tests and 10 T20Is in the span of two months, hopping from one series and one format to another with barely a break in between. Even today, he was at the top of his run-up to bowl in a Test match in Kolkata, six days after having played a T20I in Brisbane. The fitness question had been checked off.

In fact, from “why are they resting Bumrah?”, those questions had swung over to the other end of the spectrum - “why are they playing Bumrah in every game?”

Also read: Stop the workload debate, India have managed Jasprit Bumrah perfectly well

But doubts on his effectiveness remained.

You could see it sometimes in his speeds, sometimes in the rare looseness of his lines, and sometimes in the reduced zip and movement in his deliveries. But most tellingly, you could see it reflected in his lack of success against top orders.

In the Asia Cup, he took only one top order wicket in three matches against Pakistan, where Sahibzada Farhan took a special liking to him. Only one of his seven wickets in the West Indies Tests were of top six batters. And in the Australia T20Is, he was good, but not great.

As the South Africa openers got off to a flyer in Kolkata, reaching 57-0 by the 10th over, there was a sense of familiarity to proceedings. While the runs had mostly come off Mohammed Siraj and Axar Patel, Bumrah going wicketless with the new ball fit a new pattern.

With four spinners in the side, and given India’s usual tendency to wrap Bumrah in cotton wool even when he’s on the field, it came as a bit of a surprise when he was given a sixth consecutive over.

But within the next ten minutes, he had flipped the script.

Ryan Rickleton’s enterprising knock met a Bumrah beauty from the round the wicket that angled in and jagged away just enough to miss his bat and hit his stumps. In his seventh over of the spell, Bumrah then had Markram hopping and fending through to the wicketkeeper to mark what would effectively be the beginning of the end of South Africa’s dominance on day one. In the middle of a gruelling two-month schedule and towards the end of an extended spell, Bumrah had found enough reserves within him to pull out two magic balls to dismiss the opposition openers in a home Test.

At the end-of-day press conference, he would go on to say that he didn’t care much about questions on his form and fitness and that he was happy with his game, but at that moment, it sure felt like he had answered every question all at once.

Test matches in India are usually played in sparsely populated stadiums these days. But Eden Gardens is not one of them. Kolkata had turned up for its first Test in six years in numbers. In what was a sight for sore eyes, more seats were occupied than those that were empty by the time the first ball was bowled. Post-lunch, a 35,000-plus crowd got behind Bumrah - playing his first Test at the venue - as he trotted in to bowl. They’d start a collective hum that would grow into a crescendo by the time the ball was delivered. And Bumrah delivered.

From an almost identical angle with which he got Rickelton, Bumrah got one to nip ever so slightly back into Tony de Zorzi to catch him plumb in front and run off in a celebrappeal. New man Kyle Verreynne was then treated with a lethal yorker first ball. He perhaps knew what was coming, but it wasn’t enough for him to keep his toes out of the way. He survived only because Bumrah’s angle would have taken the ball down leg.

Keshav Maharaj wasn’t as lucky though. The last man in after Bumrah had shattered Simon Harmer’s stumps right after tea, Maharaj became his fifth victim, capping off the first five-wicket haul by a fast bowler in the first innings of a red-ball Test at the Eden Gardens since 1999.

Also read: The Bumrah experience: What it's like facing the world's best bowler

In a very articulate interview after play, Bumrah explained his assessment of the pitch in great detail, and how that led to him pushing for the extra over that set his 16th Test five-for in motion.

“When I bowled the first over, everything happened. The ball swung, it stayed low, it went high. So I felt it was a little difficult to understand what is the right length. So you keep bowling and keep figuring things out - ‘okay, this pitch is shaping in this manner’.

“That was my reading initially. First 3-4 balls everything happened. One ball kept low, one ball kicked. Where do you bowl? As and when the ball became softer, it did settle down. Not a lot was happening, the deviation was not consistent. So then we realised, when the ball is nice and hard and the seam is pronounced, it will do a little more and then as soon as the ball becomes softer, it will become slightly easier.

“A lot of times when we bowl from both ends, if I am having a better spell, I bowl a couple of overs extra. If Siraj is having a better spell, he will push. These are cricketing smarts. Whenever you feel like an opportunity could come, you do try to push a little."

With uneven bounce being a consistent theme through the first day, chasing a target is likely to be extremely difficult on this surface. It could still go haywire for India from here, but Bumrah’s spell has ensured that they are in with a realistic chance of not needing to bat for a second time at all.

This wasn’t Bumrah at his freshest or fastest. It didn’t need to be. What he produced at Eden was a reminder that his baseline remains rarer than most bowlers’ best. That even in the churn of formats, travel, scrutiny and schedule, he can still summon spells that tilt a Test in the space of a few deliveries.

The questions will return, as they always do, but so will he. Usually with a new answer.

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