How the ‘problem-solver’ Jasprit Bumrah thought out Babar Azam and took out Rizwan

Five years ago while watching Jasprit Bumrah wreak havoc in the Caribbean, the West Indian pace legend Curtly Ambrose was moved enough to purr on the most admirable facet of the Indian’s craft. “The way he out-thinks the batsmen, outclasses them,” before adding, “he could have been one of us, he’s so complete a bowler that he could have played in any era.”

Five years later, after thrusting the knife into the Pakistanis and turning a T20 World game in a New York minute, Bumrah would echo that singular bowling character trait of his: “I try to solve the problem that is there in front of me. I know its cliched answer but I was trying to focus on what is the best options over here on a wicket like this … I am not looking at whether I am bowling at the best of my ability.”

Seldom has a cliche rung so thrillingly fresh and true. Of all his insane abilities to conjure a yorker on will or coax the ball into bewilderingly-dipping parabolas with his slower delivery, or his sharp nipbackers or vicious straighteners or even the mechanics of his action that whip up the adrenalin of IIT professors, it’s that buzzing brain. The thought is Bumrah’s most potent weapon.

Not for him, the razzmatazz of shoving out a batsman with frenzied pace or with a dreamy delivery fabricated out of thin air. That his deliveries have nuances of both pace and dreaminess is a matter of fact; not a deliberate conscious chase of the spectacular.

Babar outthought

That ball that took out Babar Azam in the fifth ball of the fifth over had its origins in the fifth ball of the third over of the innings, his first. It had similarly kicked up outside off from back of length, holding its line, and Babar had edged his defensive poke along the ground to third man.

Babar would gesture something interesting as he jogged across for the single. He would mimic that high-arm wide-angled release of Bumrah, and importantly cut the imaginary seam with his fingers – that made that ball that he thought was angling in to straighten. All well and good, and smartly picked up but it didn’t help him a few balls later. If anything it sowed more doubt.

 

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This ball with his name on it kicked up a fraction more even as it straightened – the slow-mo replay of the release is a delightful exhibition of the thought being translated in action. At some point, Babar Azam had envisaged what was coming and he tried to yank his bat out of firing line. But here is where that pace allies with dreaminess organically for Bumrah. Babar was a fraction late; that precious single second was enough for the ball to take the edge.

There is something deadly about Bumrah’s straightener. It’s almost as potent as a leg cutter from other great bowlers like Dennis Lillee or Malcolm Marshall who picked it up from the Australian. And yet unlike Lillee or Marshall’s, this Bumrah special is ‘just’ a straightener: it’s not actively cutting away from the batsman. But that is what makes it even more vicious. Because his bowling arm comes down at an angle from his left, the straightener is actually a leg cutter, but does just about enough to take the edge.

If the angle of his right arm was straighter prior to release, his ‘straighteners’ wouldn’t be as effective. With that release-angle, the batsman feels as if the ball is going to come in a lot but it doesn’t as much, and he ends up poking a touch inside the line, edging it.

The other much-talked about aspect of Bumrah’s release too undoubtedly helps – his penchant to extend his right arm further ahead than other bowlers; more ahead it is, lesser the time the batsmen get to pick and adjust. As good a batsman as Babar couldn’t adapt in time. Bumrah’s thought would outthink and outclass him, to borrow Ambrose’s adjectives.

Rizwan outclassed

Next Bumrah blow came in the first ball of the 15th over against Mohammad Rizwan. The seeds were sown not in this game, but in the past. At the 50 over World Cup in Ahmedabad, Bumrah had broken through Rizwan’s defences with an in-slanting pearler of a slower ball in a similar match-situation. That he could think a slower ball would do the job in his first over of a new spell when the batsman was not even in hitting mode at that point was fascinating in its conception.

For some reason, now on the Long Island in New York State, Rizwan felt the urge to surprise Bumrah with a counter-attacking blow off the first ball of a new spell. A statement-making momentum-seizing four that could have killed the contest, in his mind.

 

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Like Ahmedabad, it was Bumrah’s first over of a new spell. Unlike then this was the first ball rather than the last ball of the over. There was also an incident in Bumrah’s first over in this game when Rizwan went for his favourite heave to the on side against an inward-angler that was spilled by Shivam Dube at fine-leg. Perhaps, he anticipated a similar delivery and felt he could get the execution better this time.

It was seemingly the slanter alright but yet again, close-up reveals that Bumrah’s fingers working overtime to make it not dart in as much as get it to fractionally straighten. With that angle of release, end result makes it seem like a ball that started from outside off and ended in line of stumps, but without that furious finger work, it would have ended up on the middle or even middle-and-leg line – which could well have meant that Rizwan might have connected with his shot.

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Among Pakistan fans, propelled by a term coined by a couple of YouTubers, Rizwan is known as ‘Leg-side Lapaadu’, a slugger who heaves to the leg side. Like most tags, however harsh it may be, it has more than a ring of truth about it. But he is also good with that shot often. But not this time as the only post-event feeling that lingered in the aftermath of the shattered stumps and ego was the ugliness of the shot. But yet again, there was some bits of Bumrah’s brain behind exposing it. Not the pitch, not the match-situation pressure, not the conditions but it was Bumrah’s thought that unravelled Pakistan.

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