Follow UsJasprit Bumrah was returning to professional cricket after a sizeable break that started at the end of India’s tour of Australia and included England’s white-ball tour to India and the ICC Champions Trophy 2025. It was a much-anticipated arrival against the Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) at the Wankhede for Mumbai Indians’ star pacer, and he didn’t disappoint.
After Hardik Pandya won the toss and decided to bowl first on a pitch that has always been great to bat on, Virat Kohli and Devdutt Padikkal didn’t let the run-scoring suffer at all despite Phil Salt falling early.
Bumrah bowled his first over of the day against Kohli in the third over of the innings, and the in-form batter wasted no time in dispatching his India teammate for a maximum on the second ball of the over and collected 10 runs in that over. RCB scored 73/1 in the powerplay, which was the second-best powerplay total against MI at Wankhede Stadium in IPL history.
Bumrah returned in the 11th over when Rajat Patidar was new to the crease and gave just five runs. His next two overs were the 18th and the 20th and the speedster leaked only six and eight runs in them respectively. He ended his four-over spell by giving just 29 runs at an economy of 7.02. Meanwhile, every other MI bowler leaked runs at more than 10 runs/over. The two other specialist pacers, Trent Boult and Deepak Chahar gave runs at more than 14 runs/over.
Safe to say, if not for Bumrah, RCB would have even reached 240 instead of the 221/5 they got at the end.