“My mom thought I’ll not be able to finish my school” - Jasprit Bumrah reveals interesting childhood tale amid IPL 2025 playoffs
Ace India pacer Jasprit Bumrah narrated an interesting childhood tale during the ongoing IPL 2025 playoffs. Bumrah is a part of the Mumbai Indians (MI), who will play the Eliminator against the Gujarat Titans (GT) on Friday, May 30.
The speedster appeared on a podcast with former Australian captain Michael Clarke. During the conversation, Jasprit Bumrah revealed how his mother thought he would not be able to finish schooling if he focused just on cricket.
"I started playing cricket a little late as per the cricketing schedule you might say. I didn't play under 14s under 12s. I started playing cricket late at 17ish because because my mom thought I'll not be able to finish my school if I focus on cricket. I used to play with my friends in the backyard or you know we have summer camps. Never serious. So when I went to school cricket I played two years of under 19 cricket for my state side. Then I was just picked up for the T20 side and then I was spotted by Mumbai Indians," the pacer revealed. (3:01)
Talking about the time he came into the Mumbai Indians set-up, Jasprit Bumrah recalled that he did not have to deal with much pressure.
"You don't deal with it because when I came here, Ricky Ponting was the captain, Sachin Tendulkar was still playing. You sit in a setup where all of them, Jonty Rhodes was the fielding coach, Anil Kumble is the mentor, John Wright was the coach. If you look at players and there's so many people who played so much cricket and I just started playing under 19 cricket. I just finished under 19. So yeah, slowly slowly started working my way up and you know the journey is still continuing," he said. (3:47).
"I was that youngster" - Jasprit Bumrah on how he learnt from watching television
Jasprit Bumrah, in the same podcast, also spoke about how he learnt as a youngster by watching the sport on television and listening to commentary.
"As a youngster I figured things out on my own you know learning through the television. There's always a commentator you also commentate that okay is there a youngster watching you could learn from this? I was that youngster. I was listening and watching all the time," he explained. (5:15)
Jasprit Bumrah is now among the top fast bowlers across all formats of the game. The pacer revealed how youngsters now come up to him and copy his action, indicating how times have changed. He concluded:
"I went to Australia this time. A lot of youngsters come up to me and they try and copy my action which is a surreal feeling because I used to do that. I used to copy every everybody's action. So yeah it felt really good."
In the ongoing IPL 2025 season, Jasprit Bumrah has been in top form after returning from injury, having picked up 17 wickets from just ten games.