 "Ravichandran Ashwin felt Jasprit Bumrah doesn't get the same level of respect that is accorded to batting superstars such as Virat Kohli. Reuters")
Jasprit Bumrah isn’t the leading pacer in the current Indian team; he has already made a solid case to be considered not just the greatest Indian pacer of all time but also the best bowler in the world across formats in the current generation as well as one of the greatest to have ever played the sport.
Spin legend Ravichandran Ashwin, however, feels the Mumbai Indians pacer isn’t as celebrated by Indian cricket fans as batting legends such as Sachin Tendulkar, Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma.
“I have praised him a lot. But the word you said will not come out of my mouth. But the point is, he is fabulous. That’s all I want to leave. He was born in this world. All these things become a soap opera. I am not one of those drama artists. I don’t want to market anyone. But he is a fabulous cricketer,” former India off-spinner Ashwin, who had abruptly ended his international career in December, said in a video posted on his YouTube channel.
“I really wish that we go that route (In giving Bumrah the same respect as Tendulkar and Kohli). I am still saying that as much as we do for Rohit Sharma, or Virat Kohli, or Sachin Tendulkar, we don’t do the same for Jassi.
“Definitely more than what a bowler usually has. He’s got a lot of respect. He’s got a lot of fans. A lot of people love him. I am his number one fan. Maybe his wife could be number one, competing for it. I am his number one fan,” he added.
Ashwin heaps praise on Bumrah’s execution
Ashwin particularly praised Bumrah, who currently is the only bowler with 200 or more Test crickets with an average under 20, for his execution, citing the manner in which he troubled senior England batter Joe Root in the first innings of the Headingley Test as an example.
“He is on a different pedestal. He is in a different world. And the problem is, it’s not about the uniqueness of his action. It is about the quality of execution. How does he execute? The way he troubled Joe Root in the first innings, proper. Joe Root was not able to pick the length. The ball was a little far. He could have played the rest of the bowlers in the backfoot, would have tapped it to third man. But not to Bumrah.
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More Shorts“He came forward. Because he was worried about the ball nipping back in. And he didn’t pick the length. He chased it a little. It went in the slip. He is just a fabulous bowler. The ball of Zak Crawley in the first innings, how many can he bowl that? He is almost past the vertical. From there, he dropped it in the middle stump. He has taken that out. That needs great awareness, great wrist position, quality execution, and an unbelievable amount of work to try and keep his body in that shape to do this,” Ashwin added.
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Bumrah had also starred in India’s T20 World Cup triumph last year and was the leading wicket-taker in the five-match Test series for the Border-Gavaskar Trophy recently, collecting 32 wickets at an average of 13.06.
The 31-year-old had collected his 14th Test five-for in the first Test against England in Leeds, returning figures of 5/83 to help India collect a slender-six-run lead. Bumrah, however, went wicketless in the second innings, with the English batters opting to play him carefully while attacking bowlers from the other end, chasing down a target of 371 with five wickets to spare as a result.
Bumrah is reportedly set to miss the second Test against England at Edgbaston, with the team management hopeful of keeping him fresh for the third Test at Lord’s. The pacer’s workload is being carefully managed after a back injury that he had suffered in January during the final Test in Australia.