When words certainly storm in; when you sit back all of a sudden, in the chair that always belonged to you, why not gather some of them and put such juggles of mind straight into something extraordinary?
Let’s take ourselves to 2012, a year that was more dramatic than the previous year in which a mixture of experienced and youth Indian side rocked themselves back in the world stage of cricket after 28 years since their 1st triumph. It was the year when earth was supposed to expire as per the promotional taunt by a movie in 2009 that yielded 600 Million USD in world’s box office chart.
2012 was also a year in which cricket faced adieu from some prolific names to have ever played this beautiful game. Right on the top comes, the God or The Real GOAT of cricket, little master, Sachin Tendulkar who had a mammoth 18,426 One Day international behind his name with a swashbuckling average of 44.83 an a century list of 49 retired from limited overs cricket.
Similarly Ricky Ponting, the 2 time World cup winning captain of Australia as well as one of the best batsmen of his era hanged his boots in the same year with 30 International centuries and scintillating average of 42.00 behind his name.
Likewise, 2 of the cemented pillars of a golden era of Indian cricket led by Sourav Ganguly, Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman both bid goodbye to cricket with so many classical memories of batting long in the 22 yards. Their most stay together were in India’s Test triumph in 2001 and 2003 over mighty Australians of an era filled with champion players.
At last but not the least, the speed star, who not only topped 90 mph regularly but also was one of the gentlemen of the game, Brett Lee, retired in the same year like all the above mentioned legends with an impressive wickets tally of 380 after playing 12 years of competitive cricket. This modern great had an economy of 4.76 and strike rate under 30.
A strange thing contrasted history in 2012/2013 some 6482.79 miles away from legendary Lee’s city New South Wales, a strange actioned and late momentum gainer quickie caught the eye of John Wright, ex- Indian Coach in Pune in their domestic T20 league named as Syed Musthaq Ali T20 Championship.
John was scouting young talents in domestic leagues wherever Mumbai were featuring and luckily for this pace bowler, his unique run up as well as the pace he generated during his follow through convinced John Wright that he founded what he was looking after.
And the rest is History as all of us are lucky enough to witness some classical in-swingers as well as spot on Yorkers from the spearhead of modern generation of Indian fast bowling.
Jaspreet Bumrah is a perfect example of hard work and dedication of this Kohli era in Indian cricket. There are thousands of stories that people have jotted in Bumrah’s praise but something that fascinated me in particular was an episode in a YouTube channel named What the Duck in which Bumrah mentioned how Tendulkar’s input stating that,” Bowl Against the Batsmen not against a name” made his vision clear at the highest level to gather all his focus in a nervous state of mind.
Be it his 1st game against the Royal Challengers Bangalore where he was finding it difficult to find his mark early on but as the game progressed he got even better and at the end he scalped 3 victims with one that he still remembers, the price scalp of Virat Kohli, the modern maestro with the bat.
After that there was no looking around as he landed on Australian soil where he mastered his art of death bowling and got praise from, then captain, M.S. Dhoni, who stated that Bumrah was the find of that particular tour.
The Bumarh story got fairy-tale chapters as made his bowling talk rather than his action on and off field. His planning for each individual batsmen is a lesson provided to him by the ex- Kiwi pacer, a flamboyant Yorker specialist of his era, Shane Bond. Lasith Malinga too played a vital part in his grooming but credit must go to the hunger of the youngster who grabbed the opportunity provided to him to represent his nation with both of his hands.
The real treat of T20 into test cricket got into the eyeballs of many pundits when Jasprit Bumrah made his test debut in 2018 after breaking the barriers and belief of many that he was just a specialist in limited overs cricket.
His astounding career began with the price wicket of AB De Villiers and since then he has picked up 48 wickets in the 9 Test matches he has featured making, him the most successful Indian bowler with most wickets in debutant year. He surpassed Dilip Doshi who held this record with 40 wickets in 1979 AD.
Jasprit Bumrah is also 3rd in the list of most wickets in a debut year in Test Cricket with a strike rate of 21.02 proves his venom in Test cricket just behind the great Curtly Ambrose as ,Rajneesh Gupta, presented his mind boggling stats in www.rediff.com
As world cup just few months away from all of us, Jasprit Bumrah holds the key for India’s fast bowling unit to make an impact in the land that offers a lot for the right pace and length hitting bowlers.
A contrast of the 90’s when India were praised because of the batting powerhouse they possessed, this era is all about India’s pace attack led by Jasprit Bumrah and followed by Ishant Sharma, Bhuwaneshwor Kumar, Mohammad Shami, India will look to dominate in this Golden era of India’s fast bowling.
Aakash Chopra in his YouTube channel #AakashVani mentioned a frequent time that Jasprit Bumrah is the Virat Kohli of India’s bowling department, to some extent if we look that in a bigger picture, soon Jasprit Bumrah with his hunger as well as ever improving mentality, could be the Courtney Walsh of modern generation.
This is not an end to a Jasprit Bumrah story but a start of a new generation in cricket which is supposed to be a bowler’s dominating era like in the 90’s. The pictures are yet to be unfolded with lots of emerging teams like Nepal, UAE, Hongkong, Scotland as well as Netherlands holding power guns as a spearheads of their individual attack. History is in the brisk of repeating itself.
