Jasprit Bumrah picked 14 wickets in three Tests in England with two fifers.
Former India cricketer Irfan Pathan has rated premier pacer Jasprit Bumrah 6/10 for his performances on the recent England tour. Bumrah played three Tests on the tour as per his workload management, took fifers, including one in the Lord’s Test, and finished with 14 scalps.
But it's also true that India drew one of the competitions in which Bumrah competed and lost two others. Even though it might have just been a coincidence, Pathan believes that a senior bowler has a duty to win games for his team, something Bumrah was unable to accomplish in England.
“Bumrah will get six out of ten. Why? The reason is that when you are a senior player, there is a lot of responsibility on you to win matches. He played in three tests, and India did not win any of them," Pathan said on his YouTube channel.
“Let us go back to the first test. He took five wickets in the first innings but did not get a single wicket in the second innings (while defending 371 runs). At that crucial time, when your main match-winner is expected to step up and win the game, it is up to him to find a way, whether it is over the wicket, around the wicket, yorkers, slower balls, or bouncers, to create pressure. In the Leeds Test, we did not see that pressure being built. England ended up scoring heavily, and Bumrah did not take a single wicket, which was a bit surprising. And this did not happen just once," he added.
The squad occasionally needed another over from Bumrah during a stretch, but Pathan said the 31-year-old "held back a little."
“There were moments, like when a sixth over was needed. I spoke about this during commentary as well. Joe Root had been dismissed by him 11 times, and in that Lord’s Test, Bumrah bowled five overs. Just one more over, the sixth, could have pushed harder. I felt he held back a little there. There was also some pick-and-choose, which I have always been against, and that was visible too," he said.
However, Pathan acknowledged that Bumrah did not live up to the expectations despite his performance and two five-wicket hauls.
“To be fair, whenever he played, he did perform. He took a five-wicket haul and got his name on the Lord’s honors board. But when you are the number one bowler, there is an expectation of number one-level performance, and I felt he did not quite live up to that," Pathan concluded.
India managed to draw the five-Test series against England 2-2 with a dramatic win in the final Test at the Oval by six runs.