Jasprit Bumrah wreaked havoc on England’s batting line-up in the ongoing second Test.
Indian speedster Jasprit Bumrah shared his insights into reverse-swing bowling after his lethal spell during the ongoing second Test against England in Vizag on Saturday, February 3.
Bumrah wreaked havoc on England’s batting line-up and finished with figures of 6/45, giving Team India a substantial lead of 143 runs in the first innings.
Bumrah also became the fastest Indian pacer to pick up 150 Test wickets, in 34 matches, and the second-fastest Asian pacer overall after Waqar Younis, who took 27 matches.
In a conversation with Ravi Shastri, Bumrah opened up about his mastery of the reverse swing, emphasizing the importance of learning the art of the reverse swing for bowlers to take wickets.
According to Bumrah, bowlers should focus on consistently bowling good deliveries rather than relying on 'magic balls' to unsettle the batters.
The Indian pacer further stressed that understanding how to use reverse swing is crucial, as merely relying on in-swing and out-swing won't be sufficient to succeed with reverse-swing bowling.
Jasprit Bumrah said on Sports18 after stumps on Day 2: “Yeah. Always enjoy when you get rewards. When you play in India, reverse swing becomes important and when you grow up here and play first-class cricket, you know how to use the reverse swing.”
He further explained, “In India, if you want to pick wickets, you have to learn to reverse swing the ball. As a child growing up, I watched the bowlers setting up batters and it inspired me. What happens is when you start reverse swinging the ball, you try to bowl magic balls.
But you have to bowl good deliveries and set the batsmen up. It’s not that you get wickets with the magic deliveries. Just bowling in-swing and out-swing won’t get you wickets. You have to set up the batters. After the fourth delivery, I was thinking that he (Root) would be thinking about the in-swinger. So, I bowled the away swinger.”
On becaming the second-fastest Asian to reach 150 wickets, Bumrah said: “I’m really happy. But I try to look away from numbers and records. Because if you look at it, you build pressure on yourselves.”
The Indian star signed off by saying, “Whenever things don’t go my way, I just remind myself that I wanted to play Test cricket and I have to enjoy playing Test cricket.”