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Jasprit Bumrah Got On Lord’s Honours Board, But Irfan Pathan Questions His Hunger
Follow UsPathan feels Bumrah failed to deliver the match-winning performances expected from him
Jasprit Bumrah may have taken 14 wickets in just three Tests at an average of 26 in the recently concluded England series, but former India all-rounder Irfan Pathan believes the pacer didn’t make a decisive impact when it mattered most.
Despite his numbers on paper, Pathan feels Bumrah failed to deliver the match-winning performances expected from India’s pace spearhead.
Bumrah, who was rested for two Tests to manage his workload, featured in the first, third, and fourth games. Interestingly, India lost two of those three games, while the fourth Test ended in a draw. In contrast, the two matches he missed saw India register victories, helping Shubman Gill’s side draw the series 2-2.
“Bumrah will get 6 out of 10. When you're a senior player, there is a lot of responsibility to win matches. He played three Tests, and India didn’t win any of them,” Pathan said on his YouTube channel, as reported by the Times of India.
While the pace spearhead did claim two five-wicket hauls, including one at Lord’s, he went wicketless in the final innings of the first Test at Leeds, where England successfully chased down a mammoth 371-run target. In the fourth Test at Manchester, Bumrah conceded over 100 runs in a single innings for the first time in his career as England piled on 669 runs.
Bumrah missed the fifth and final Test, where Mohammed Siraj and Prasidh Krishna stepped up with a combined 17 wickets to seal a memorable six-run win for India.
“At that crucial time, your main match-winner has to find a way - over the wicket, around the wicket, yorkers, slower balls, bouncers - anything to create pressure. That didn't happen. In the Leeds Test, we did not see that pressure being built. England ended up scoring heavily, and Bumrah did not take a single wicket,” Pathan pointed out.
“There were moments, like when a sixth over was needed. Joe Root had been dismissed by him 11 times, and in that Lord's Test, Bumrah bowled just five overs. That one more over could’ve pushed harder. I felt he held back.
“He took a five-wicket haul and got his name on the Lord's honours board. But when you are the number one bowler, there is an expectation of number one-level performance, and I felt he did not quite live up to that.”