Jasprit Bumrah Right up There With the Very Best to Have Played the Game: Stuart Broad

Legendary paceman Stuart Broad heaped praise on Team India star Jasprit Bumrah after his scintillating performance in the second Test against England at Vizag. Bumrah ripped through England’s batting line-up and claimed a six-wicket haul to help India take a handy 143-run lead after the first innings.

Bumrah was too good for the star-studded English middle order and produced a sensational spell on a placid surface.

He set up Joe Root with his sensational reverse-swinging delivery and then produced a toe-crushing yorker to get the better of Ollie Pope to break England’s back.

“If someone as good as Joe Root is habitually struggling with a particular bowler, you can bet your bottom dollar that every batter on the Test scene will be,” Broad wrote in the Daily Mail.

Bumrah completed 150 Test wickets on Day 2 and became the fastest Indian pacer to achieve the feat.

Broad also wrote about Bumrah’s incredible numbers in Test cricket and called him one of the best to play the game.

“Jasprit Bumrah has a unique action and there’s no doubting that India are a much better team with him in it. He’s an incredible Twenty20 bowler, but as his record of 152 wickets at just 20.28 runs each attests, he is even more effective in Test cricket. Statistically, he is right up there with the very best to have played the game,” he further added.

Broad further talked about his unique bowling action and compared him with Sri Lanka bowling legend Lasith Malinga.

“Facing him isn’t like facing anyone else in the world and I used to hate it. Sri Lanka’s Lasith Malinga, with his slingy round-arm release, had that point of difference about him and Bumrah has something similar in that his deliveries are incredibly hard to pick up,” Broad said.

The Englishman elaborated how Bumrah’s action is very disconcerting for a batter.

“Because he trots in from a very calm, short, shuffling run-up, he generates no real energy and there is therefore no real build-up to the ball suddenly being upon you at the striker’s end. It can be very disconcerting,” Broad concluded on the India pacer.