India vs Zimbabwe 2016: Jasprit Bumrah focussed on bowling in the right areas
India’s Jasprit Bumrah is making rapid strides in international cricket with every passing tournament and his nine scalps against Zimbabwe in three ODIs is a testimony to the fact that the 22-year-old is slowly becoming a bowler that any batsmen will be anxious to face. A player who rose to fame with the IPL, Bumrah is making sure that he remains a threat to the opposition even outside the T20 format.
Though India may have faced inferior opposition in terms of the quality of cricket the African cricketing minnows brings to the table, Bumrah is happy that the job at hand was well executed.
"International cricket is international cricket (whether it is Zimbabwe or any other team). The days are going good for us, we are getting the results. We are looking to keep on improving," he said, as reported by the Times of India. “We did not plan anything different. We were just trying to bowl in the good areas. We did not try anything different to pick up wickets, nothing out of the box. We were just trying to bowl good balls."
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Talking about his personal style of bowling, which stands out from the rest with a rather peculiar side-on action, Bumrah said that he is open to trying out different variations no matter who the opposition batsman is.
"What I try to do, sometimes it doesn't come off. But I try it again rather than thinking about the batsman's mindset. If I am not able to execute my plans, then I feel I am not up to the mark and there has been a mistake on my part. Then I try to keep a cool head and try to do it all over again," Bumrah said.
India completed a 3-0 series whitewash against Zimbabwe by clinching the final ODI at Harare by ten wickets and in spite of picking up four wickets, Bumrah, insists that the conditions were less helpful to the bowlers than in the previous two games.
"It is always good when the ball is moving, so you can try out more variations. The wicket today was not offering as much help as it was in the earlier two games. We had to be more disciplined and not pitch the ball too full. We just tried to stick to the basics hoping that we don't give many runs and the batsmen make mistakes under pressure," said Bumrah.
The Ahmedabad-born is confident that he will only get better as he attains more experience playing all levels of cricket.
"Earlier, I only used to get the ball into right-handers. Over the years, I have developed some variations, thanks to first-class cricket and the IPL," Bumrah added.