Jasprit Bumrah made the GT batters danced to his tunes in MI's opening match of the IPL 2024 season.
The right-arm quick played an instrumental role in India’s Asia Cup 2023 triumph and then made the batters dance to his tunes in the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup last year.
Bumrah then carried on his brilliance to Test cricket on the tour of South Africa and in the home series against England. He is currently plying his trade in the IPL 2024 season for Mumbai Indians.
During MI’s campaign opener against the Gujarat Titans in Ahmedabad on March 24, Bumrah produced an exceptional spell to trouble the opposition batters.
Former England pacer Stuart Broad was quite impressed with how Bumrah operated with the new ball, which included an inswinging yorker to clean up GT opener Wriddhiman Saha.
“That’s what he does, it’s just his trademark. He will beat you with the pace. He will beat you with his trajectory. It’s an interesting one with the new ball, I feel like he asked to come on and get the first wicket of the day and set the tone,” Broad said on Star Sports.
“But whatever he is going to use he is going to be successful because of so much skill and so much talent. And it’s just up to Hardik and team and management to figure out exactly where that will work,” he added.
In his second spell, Jasprit Bumrah dismissed David Miller (12) and Sai Sudharsan (45). While Miller was deceived by a slower delivery, Sudharsan was caught at deep square leg in his attempt to flick a short of a length delivery.
After the first three overs, Bumrah’s bowling figures were quite astonishing as he had conceded only 8 runs with three wickets to his name.
In his last over, Bumrah gave away 6 runs and he returned with the figures of 3/14 in his four-over quota. Thanks to his stunning spell, MI restricted GT to 168/6 in 20 overs.
Australia’s star batter Steve Smith was happy to see Bumrah back to doing what he does best after missing the last IPL season due to back injury.
“He (Bumrah) is such a good bowler. We know that he has been such an unbelievable bowler for so many years. It’s great to see him back after obviously missing last year. He created a good impact in the very first game. He bowled beautifully: 3 for 14, on what looked like a pretty good wicket. I think playing here, it doesn’t give you much but try to get to wickets and that’s the best place to be,” Smith said.
However, Jasprit Bumrah’s herculean effort with the ball went in vain as MI suffered a narrow six-run defeat.
Chasing 169 to win, the five-time champions were cruising when Rohit Sharma (43) and Dewald Brevis (46) were batting together. However, their dismissals in quick succession triggered a collapse as MI’s innings ended at 162/9 in 20 overs.
“Games have become so exciting in these final overs. I must admit when Hardik Pandya hit that first ball of the last over for six, I thought they (MI) are going to win this and it is going to be a fairy tale story,” Broad stated.
“But as Ravi said, (the trend of) Mumbai Indians not winning the first game (of a season), I don’t think it’s done too much harm, I think they have lots of positive signs for Mumbai Indians in this game but it’s extremely disappointing that they threw away their position because we know how things are to come by and the advantage of the home team in this stage of the IPL,” he further remarked.