Jasprit Bumrah, India’s star pacer, is optimistic that his teammate, Akash Deep, will build on the “special win” the players achieved during a second Test against Bangladesh in Kanpur on Tuesday.
Even though India lost more than two days of the match owing to the rain and wet outfield, the Indian players nevertheless fought and pushed themselves to claim the game on a bright sunny day in Kanpur, winning it by 7 wickets.
During the series, Ravindra Jadeja, Ashwin, and other bowlers came to the scene when required. But it was the young Akash Deep brought heat in Kanpur, swung his way to the headlines by making his presence felt with the SG ball in his hand.
Jasprit Bumrah recalled how exciting it was to watch Akash wreaking havoc on a stubborn opponent in a Bangladesh jersey. The crafty bowler disclosed that there were some rather “interesting conversations” when Akash approached him before a particular match, wanting to know how to intrigue the crowd instead with the ball in his hand.
Sometimes, especially before a spell, he (Akash Deep) would come up to me and ask me such questions as `what is happening and what should I do’ As such, we have had a lot of amazing bowler, and when the ball is in his hands, he plays it well, when it is his turn to bowl, he is very much into the game, and that’s encouraging for us in the future. I mean, he can only grow from here,” Bumrah expressed those words after Indian glorious win against Bangladesh.
Those two Tests made Akash a conventional bowler but a deck hitter, which he managed to do and achieved five wickets by the end of the series.
Indians were at the Green Park for five days and the pitch changed its character many times… the pitch weather was in the hands of the weather lord. And as it often happens in Kanpur, once it stops raining and the sun is out, it becomes quite difficult for the fast bowlers to take advantage of the conditions.
As much as it is reasonable to expect that the pitch will turn which is not usual for Jasprit Bumrah as such, it was an experience that he enjoyed in rising up to those expectations.
“I embrace that challenge when one tries to go outside their character and the circumstances are not in their favour, especially the wicket. This is a challenge. How do you get answers?” All of these battles I really like. We have tasted quite a bit of cricket in India. You comprehend the nature of the wicket, the SG ball sometimes reverses too but the only problem is at times due to humidity you cannot keep the ball dry, and so you find ways and talk to other people about it too,” Bumrah added.
“It was a test for our fitness as well, as you see how hot the weather is, bowling every day and trying to create an impact, a really special win. You use your experience, but it is easier said than done because you have done a lot of cricket and on different surfaces. You find solutions. For the first time it felt like this wicket was so different from what we got in Chennai so we updated them into all this very fast and went about exploring the best solution we can find,” he said.
At last, as India went beyond their boundaries and altered the very essence of what a Test should be, Jasprit Bumrah was on top of the charts as well with 11 wickets through the series making him joint leading wicket taker in the ODI series.
The cricketer burning the remaining candle at both ends wants the ball to do his bidding hence calling himself incarnated magician mast Bhagat Chetan. Yet, the veteran fast bowler does not seem to be in such light heading mode. He is simply happy that they were able to wrap the series over Bangladesh without any drama.
“This is a very nice feeling. I don’t give any of this adjective a thought. (wage a war of syllables being a magician) All things I want to say in just one word, that it is really great to win this match where we had lost for a few days,” said Jasprit Bumrah.
Finally, after the T20 series, India will travel to Dhaka to play 3 T20I matches against Bangladesh and host New Zealand for 3 test matches in the month of August.
