NEWS
Follow UsThe April 11 (Thursday) encounter between Mumbai Indians (MI) and Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) was another demonstration of Jasprit Bumrah’s greatness. In a spell of utter ferocity, Bumrah sent down four overs for just 21 while picking five wickets in the process.
That rightfully landed him the Player of the Match award, but Bumrah is still disappointed by the fact that Dinesh Karthik hit him for a six on the final delivery of the over, taking his figures from 5/15 to 5/21. Bumrah had bowled on the wide outside off-stump line but Karthik managed to send it over sweeper cover fence for a six.
"Yeah, it was a good day, you know, one of those days when mostly what I was executing was working," Bumrah told the broadcaster. "And the wicket was a little sticky, so I was trying to look at my options. Still a little disappointed with my last ball, but yeah, that's the way T20 cricket goes."
“But I will not say I had always thought of taking a five-for. The wicket was sticking in the first 10 overs. I observed that quickly and tried to use it to my advantage. One of those days where things went in my favour and catches went to hand. Very happy with the contribution. In this format, it's anyway very harsh on the bowlers so you have to have all kinds of skills.”
Bumrah put his success down to the insane level of work he puts in order to create various options for himself. Even though he has been one of the finest proponents of yorker, the Gujarat pacer is equally successful in delivering bouncers and moving balls.
“This is what I train for. Come this situation, I should have different options. I should not be a one-trick pony, and can't just rely on yorker because there will be days where my execution is off, so I can rely on other deliveries. Everyone is doing research and data, so people start to line you up.
"So I wanted to have different skills. Bowling is tough because you will have to take a beating, you will have to have bad days to learn from it. What I've done in the past, whenever I've had bad days, I've watched videos the next day to see what didn't work, why it didn't work, what is the way I've been playing.
“All of these things, you have to be with the curve. Nowadays, you just cannot come on the day and say ‘okay, I'll do this, maybe this will work’. For me, preparation is always the key. When you prepare hard, you put yourself under pressure in the nets. You bowl to batters in the nets who hit big sixes, find out how you react to pressure. Then you start finding answers.
“That is very very important for me - to keep pushing yourself in training. Then on game day, you have answers that are okay when I had similar pressure in training, I had answers. I do my research and see where the batter is strong. Sometimes the wicket is sticky, but you don't always need to bowl the yorker. You can use the bouncer, you can use the slower ball. So you don't need to use all the tricks on one day. You have to understand where the game is going, and what the wicket is.
“There's no ego in this format. Even if you can bowl 145kph, but the wicket demands slower balls, then you have to do that. All of these things are important. It's not just one-trick pony - aim at the stumps and go pole hunting,” the Indian pacer concluded.
Last night's performance was the sign of a bowler who has been at the peak of his powers, but Bumrah doesn't want to treat this phase any differently. For he knows that every high is corresponded with a new low - hence, he likes to treat both results in equal measure.
"I don't want to get too high or too low with bad days and good days," Bumrah said. "Yes, it feels very happy. Yes, I've been able to contribute and it's going well. But I want to keep my feet on the ground, stay humble and work hard. Because this game is the greatest leveller. I want to keep working hard and try to focus on the games ahead."
