Bumrah’s workload: will India protect its potent weapon with the proverbial pot of gold in sight? Premium

Jasprit Bumrah's rise as India's premier fast bowler and his impact on upcoming Test series against Bangladesh, New Zealand, and Australia.

With a wry smile, he flicked his tee back with the thumb and forefinger of each hand like he does after each delivery and whirled around to the top of his bowling mark, half-nodding in appreciation at the quality of the stroke. The virtuoso in him recognised that he was up against another master, the thread of mutual respect binding the bowler and the batter all too obvious to even the most casual onlooker.

This scene isn’t from a high-pressure, plenty-at-stake international encounter. It did eventuate at the MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai, but at India’s practice session ahead of the first Test against Bangladesh, starting on Thursday. Jasprit Bumrah and Virat Kohli were engaged in a fascinating battle of wits and skill, the champion bowler and the accomplished batter going toe-to-toe without taking a backward step.

Bumrah generally had the better of the exchanges, forcing Kohli on the defensive. Such was the quality of each ball snaking out of his right hand that the man with 80 international hundreds concentrated primarily on keeping his wicket intact. One solid defensive contact followed another; this was cricket of the highest quality, watched only by a handful when it would have lit up a half a session of Test cricket.

Then, without warning, Bumrah produced an in-cutter, cutting back sharply and homing in on the stumps. Kohli was prepared, half-forward, his bat coming down in a straight line, the full face presented towards the ball. Yet, even he found the ball too quick for him, beaten for pace and trapped palpably in front. Bumrah celebrate-appealed, flashed a contented smile, did the tee-flick routine and skipped to his bowling mark. Kohli gritted his teeth, aware that he had been schooled by his own team-mate, no less.

After a couple of careful defensive pushes, Kohli plonked his left foot down the track and punch-drove Bumrah over cover. There was no big flourish on the follow-through, the bat stopping its arc almost immediately after it made contact with the ball. That contact was sweet, the subsequent music it produced mellifluous. The ball sailed over where cover would have been, landed well behind it and sped across the turf to the boundary at the rate of knots. It wasn’t the final act in that compelling passage of play, but those five deliveries involving India’s best bowler and the team’s best batter was as absorbing and gripping a contest as any that might unfold over the next four months.

These next four months are huge from Indian cricket’s perspective. Around two little pockets of seven meaningless (except from a broadcast perspective) Twenty20 Internationals, these four months will see India play 10 Tests, five at home and then five in Australia. These are India’s last engagements in the current cycle of the World Test Championship, whose qualification table they now helm. How they square up against Bangladesh (two Tests), New Zealand (three games) and Australia will determine if India can extend their proud record of reaching the final of every single WTC.

It’s no exaggeration that how India square up will depend largely on how much of a say Bumrah has. Bumrah will be crucial in Australia, without a shadow of doubt, but he will also be a huge factor at home simply because his unique bowling style, heavily reliant on upper body strength and torque and on his powerful forearm and a strong, supple right wrist, is equipped to take the surface out of the equation. Bumrah can wreak havoc on even the most benign of tracks because such is the quality he possesses; India’s trick will be to ensure that they don’t bowl Bumrah to the ground, but also spur him to stay physically fit and strong and mentally fresh so that he can play as many of these ten Tests as possible.