Time to stop obsessing about Jasprit Bumrah’s unusual action and focus on his brain

Bumrah’s brain took centerstage at Perth, as it has done all around the world. The mistakes committed by the Australian bowlers would show the contrast.

At the start of the second innings, admitted by their head coach Andrew McDonald as well, the Australians were a touch short with the new ball.

India’s captain Jasprit Bumrah collects the ball as he prepares to bowl on the second day of the first cricket test between Australia and India in Perth. (AP)

The variable bounce hadn’t kicked in yet on the pitch and the shortness of the length allowed Yashasvi Jaiswal and KL Rahul to settle in. Later on in the day, even when the pitch had begun to wear and tear, the Aussies had bowled full, allowing the Indian batsmen to take a stride forward to negate the unpredictability of the surface.

“I see the trend of what is working on that particular day if I am bowling second, I am looking at the opposition team: okay this is what they did right and this is what they did not do right. So I try to learn from that,” Bumrah had said in the past.

He certainly had watched the Australians and went the other way on Sunday evening. He assessed that the danger ball on this pitch was the one that skids in from the back of length. The balls haven’t yet started to kick up alarmingly as sometimes it can go when the cracks open up awry.

Directing the new ball, with pace, was the way to go. Wasting that first spell was criminal here. Once the ball goes soft, the slowness of pace helps the batsmen make late adjustments.

So Bumrah’s plan was simple: Bowl back of length, target the stumps and use the occasional straightener to test the outside edge. The iffiness of the Australian top-order of course helped.

The debutant Nathan Sweeney, a middle-order batsman promoted ahead of domestic openers, unsurprisingly struggled and made the wrong decisions. Sweeny went back and that proved fatal. The pacy skidder kept low and kept sneaking in to beat the bat and the opener was out lbw.

Australia’s Marnus Labuschagne, right, leaves the field after losing his wicket as India’s captain Jasprit Bumrah celebrates with teammates on the third day of the first cricket test between Australia and India in Perth, Australia, Sunday, Nov. 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Trevor Collens)

Marnus Labuschagne’s form should concern the Australians. He has almost stopped moving towards the ball – his sole aim is only survival. In his good days, the hands might get him out of trouble, with the bat coming in time ahead of the pad. But without the intent to meet the ball with any conviction, his defensive game doesn’t stand much chance.

Bumrah didn’t take long to suss that out and had the ball cutting in sharply from outside off stump. Someone like Marnus should have known what was in store. Bumrah rarely if ever starts the ball from that line and takes it away or lets it go straight.

Certainly not on this pitch. It might not dart in as much as it always did, but still the bat has to be somewhere in line in case it comes in. Startlingly, Labuschagne shouldered arms. And he was done as the ball rammed into his pad.

Turning magic into science

When Bumrah hurls it short of length, his nipbackers move in more menacingly. And once it did Labuschagne had no answer. His second failure in the game gave rise to the question in the Australian media: Does he deserve a place in the playing XI?

The reason the world’s leading batsmen struggle against Bumrah isn’t just his unusual action. It’s his cricketing intelligence, and element of deception, that makes him, what Wasim Akram keeps repeating, the world’s best bowler.

To understand the degree of difficulty factor this. Bumrah’s arm can be all tilted inwards, but the wrist can be cocked outward – almost as if they are two disjoint parts in that limb. The ball then can come in the air, forcing the batsman to play before he finds out that it’s a straightener. By then it becomes too late and it takes a piece of edge along with it, or misses the bat and rams into the pad.

In a lesser degree, and in a different way, Andrew Flintoff of England, at his pomp as a bowler for two years, had that wrist-sorcery. He would almost swivel his wrist at the last instant and get the ball to dart in sharply or straighten.

India’s captain Jasprit Bumrah collects the ball as he prepares to bowl on the second day of the first cricket test between Australia and India in Perth. (AP)

Because of Bumrah’s wrist angle and his finger-work, not many batsmen are thus able to read how much the inward movement will be. That’s why batsmen warily peering through the helmet grill, getting the bat in line, delay the final confident hands-push to meet the ball.

With most pacers’s nipbackers, we see batsmen stride forward, say, to defend compactly. Not with Bumrah, unless you are Steve Smith with his own special technique. Mostly, the batsmen tend to be wary against Bumrah, ready to move the bat right or left to ensure contact.

And his assessment of what to bowl can be devastatingly accurate for the batsmen. He can make the seemingly strange choices like a slower ball at the start of a spell, or show admirable patience in slipping a yorker to ensure its surprise is intact.

Those are essentially magic balls. But Bumrah turns them into functional tools. To know what to bowl and when to bowl is perhaps the greatest trait a bowler can have. Add to that the ability to bowl that particular delivery.

Bumrah has all the three traits, brain and body has rarely synced so effectively. It’s not just the twisted arm or the extension, Bumrah’s real magic is his scientific brain.