Delhi: At present, among the cricket playing countries, the one bowler who is discussed the most and that too with praise is Jasprit Bumrah, those who did not play him and those who are playing now, unanimously rate him as the number 1 fast bowler of this era. The bowler says. Does it matter what the ICC rankings show? That is why he is a cricketer in all three formats of Team India and vice-captain in the Test format. If we look at the record, till Adelaide he has taken 185 wickets in 42 Tests at an economy rate of only 2.75.
These days, a very interesting discussion is going on that who gave this great bowler a big platform to shine? Now no one is claiming to have given coaching to Jasprit Bumrah because he himself has answered this question and according to that answer, TV was his first and biggest coach and remains so till date. Now when we talk about providing a big international platform, there are many contenders but there are two names whose claims cannot be ignored.
The first such claim is from Team India’s former head coach Ravi Shastri and the story he tells is called ‘recognizing Bumrah’s talent in the puja pandal’. In fact, once during Durga Puja, India’s Test team was in Kolkata. Jasprit Bumrah had started playing by then, but was considered fit for white-ball cricket (ODI and T20 debut in January 2016). His ‘strange action’ was then considered ‘unfit’ for Test cricket.
On one hand, there was Durga Puja in Kolkata and on the other hand there was a Test with Sri Lanka at Eden Gardens and during this period, former CAB Secretary Biswaroop Dey invited the team management for a Durga Puja. Then Ravi Shastri and bowling coach Bharat Arun went there. There the talk of the year-end South Africa series started in the pandal. During that conversation, for the first time Ravi Shastri got the idea that why not feed Jasprit as a ‘surprise’.
This thought filled Ravi Shastri with such enthusiasm that in his desperation, while returning from the puja in the car, Bharat asked Arun to call Jasprit and ask him to be ready for the South Africa tour. Ravi Shastri wanted such a fast bowler in the team, who would surprise everyone. Called. Jasprit Bumrah had no expectations of such a call. Jasprit Bumrah went to South Africa and made his Test debut in January 2018. After that, what happened is history. Team India’s red ball cricket record changed.
The second big story mentioned has come from England. John Wright, on one hand, is famous as the first Kiwi player to score 5000 test runs, but also as the coach of Kent County, Team India and New Zealand. He also has one more introduction. He was also the coach of Mumbai Indians (MI) and was the coach when Mumbai won the first IPL title.
Wright joined Mumbai Indians in 2013 and the team won its first title in the same year. Wright stayed with this team for two years and he attributes the biggest achievement of that period not to MI’s first IPL title, but to recognizing Jasprit Bumrah’s talent, signing him for the team and bringing him to the big platform.
He went to watch the Gujarat-Mumbai match in a domestic T20 tournament in Ahmedabad before the season. There he saw a boy with a strange action trying to bowl 12 yorkers in a row. They were shocked and had never seen anything like this before. Found out who he is? It was decided right there that this boy will play for Mumbai Indians and will pay every price for him.
The team’s first match of IPL was in Bangalore. Sachin Tendulkar also came to the nets and when Sachin batted for the first over, Wright deliberately gave the ball to Jasprit. After the nets, Sachin’s first question to Wright was – ‘John, who is this kid?’ Even though Jasprit Bumrah did not play much in the next two seasons, John Wright claims that Team India got Jasprit Bumrah from this platform.
Video: Rohit Sharma looked worried in the press conference regarding Jasprit Bumrah.
