Jasprit Bumrah: The India sling king revelling in Australia

Jasprit Bumrah celebrates the fall of an Australian wicket with teammates (Pic: AFP)

With his 'slingshot' delivery and ability to unsettle the world's best batsmen, India's Jasprit Bumrah is widely regarded as one of cricket's greatest fast bowlers. The 31-year-old has defied career-threatening back problems and on Wednesday overtook Kapil Dev to become India's leading Test wicket-taker in Australia.

Bumrah, India's player of the series so far, took nine wickets in the third Test at Brisbane to move to 53 in Australia and past Dev's previous mark of 51. He was player of the match in India's 295-run victory in Perth in the opening Test, before the hosts levelled the series in Adelaide. He is the leading bowler on either side with 21 wickets in the series so far at a scarcely believable average of 10.90.

The next best are Mitchell Starc and Pat Cummins with 14 dismissals each. "I think he is definitely India's greatest fast bowler," former Australia captain Ricky Ponting said of Bumrah.

'Clearly the best'

"In T20 cricket, one-day cricket and Test match cricket, he's clearly the best right now." Travis Head, who has excelled with the bat for Australia in the five-match series scoring two centuries and a fifty, went even further. "Jasprit is probably going to go down as one of the greatest fast bowlers to play the game," said Head.

Bumrah, captaining in the first Test in the absence of Rohit Sharma, made life hell for the Australian batsmen on a bouncing Perth pitch. He took 5-30 from 18 overs as the hosts were shot out for 104 and followed up with 3-42 in the second innings as India won by 295 runs. His unorthodox front-on action allows him to release the ball late and he can bowl yorkers at will.

Australia's quick bowler Josh Hazlewood marvelled at Bumrah's idiosyncratic style, which was honed in his childhood while practising in a small car park near his family's apartment in the city of Ahmedabad. "If you haven't faced him before, it can really unsettle you," Hazlewood said. "He lets the ball go way out in front, so he's pretty much half a yard quicker than what the actual speed gun says. "He's like a slingshot loading up and letting go."

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Bumrah's match haul in Perth had some pundits questioning the legality of his deliveries, which appear to be bowled with a bent elbow. Australian great and former India coach Greg Chappell soon jumped to Bumrah's defence, describing the debate as "nonsense" and deeming Bumrah's action "unequivocally clean". Bumrah has had his share of struggles and only came back into the India team last year after a serious back injury that kept him out of action in 2022 and 2023. He played a key part in India's June T20 World Cup triumph in Barbados, where he was instrumental in preventing South Africa scoring 30 runs off the last 30 balls to win the final, a performance dubbed a "masterclass" by Rohit.

The seeds of his greatness were sown at his Indian Premier League team Mumbai Indians, where he has been a fixture for more than a decade. Former New Zealand batsman John Wright scouted the pace bowler from his home state of Gujarat and brought him to Mumbai in 2013, when the Indians won the first of their five IPL titles. Bumrah made an instant impact by dismissing Bengaluru's star batsman Virat Kohli in his first match. Head, who fell to Bumrah in the second innings at Perth, said he loved trying to solve the conundrum that is the enigmatic bowler. "It's going to be nice to look back at your career and tell the grandkids that you faced him," he said.

(With AFP inputs)