IND vs ENG 2021: Jasprit Bumrah reveals the fascinating stories behind his peculiar bowling action and run up
Indian pace spearhead Jasprit Bumrah has revealed the story behind his unorthodox bowling action and the suttering run up.
In a candid interaction with Dinesh Karthik for Sky Sports, he said the current high-arm, slingy action is a jumbled-up amalgation of lessons from various fast-bowlers he saw on television as a youngster. Jasprit Bumrah said once finding rythm with the action, he decided to stick with it barring any injuries, while also thanking his coaches for not forcing him to change it. He said:
"I learned cricket from watching television. I didn't get any formal coaching so I used to copy everybody's actions. This did not come naturally but later on, I don't know what jumbled up and I ended up with this one. But it didn't give me a lot of pain in the body so I thought, 'Okay if it's not troubling me, I'll use it to my advantage.'"
Jasprit Bumrah added:
"I was lucky that wherever I went, the coaches didn't try to tamper with it and only advised me to work on my body and everything else will be taken care of... I tried to keep things simple that if there's some physical discomfort, and I am not able to execute what I want to, then only I need to change things."
As for the run up, Jasprit Bumrah recalled that he used to run all the way to the crease as a youngster, unlike now where he walks a long way before running just before the hurl.
He giddily added that he made the shift to simply preserve energy for longer spells. Jasprit Bumrah explained:
"When I started, I used to play a lot of tennis ball cricket, or in India we play a lot of it with the rubber ball. So, when I used to play, the boundary was only of this size (very short). So I couldn't go too far back (for the run-up). Earlier, I didn't used to walk so much but rather run all the way. Later on I realized I was waiting a lot of energy and the speed was still the same! Nobody told me to do this but I came up with my own thing like 'Maybe walk a little and run a little and preserve energy' and it didn't trouble me a lot and helped me in the longer spells."
"Batting never really excited me, I was only interested in low-scoring games" - Jasprit Bumrah
Jasprit Bumrah also spoke about why he chose the path of fast-bowling despite batting being the preferred option in India. The 27-year-old stated that he was drawn into the art because of the 'kick', the 'excitement' and the 'buzz' it brought with it, especially in low-scoring games.
Jasprit Bumrah said in this regard:
"As a child, batting never really excited me. Till date as well, fast bowling gives you that kick and that excitement. I was only interested in the games where fast bowlers did well, low-scoring games. I was not really interested in high-scoring games with the batsmen hitting sixes. Even when the fast bowlers do well the whole stadium is cheering and you can feel the buzz. And that really appealed to me as a youngster and that is the reason I went in this direction."
With that action and his love for fast-bowling, Jasprit Bumrah has collected over 250 international wickets so far and is currently chasing his 100th red-ball victim in the fourth India-England Test at The Oval.