Indian Premier League (IPL) has played a key role in speedster Jasprit Bumrah’s career. He began his IPL journey with the Mumbai Indians (MI) in 2013 and drew instant attention in the cricket fraternity for his unorthodox action.
Bumrah’s contribution in MI’s title wins in 2013 and 2015 eventually paved the way for his India debut in 2016 and he never looked back.
Now, Bumrah has established himself as India’s pace bowling spearhead across all forms of the game and is widely deemed as one of the most lethal fast bowlers in international cricket.
In an interaction with India teammate R Ashwin on his YouTube channel, Bumrah opened up on his first call-up to the Mumbai Indians camp and also revealed that he got Ponting out 2-3 times during a net session.
“Basically, I had gone into the Mumbai Indians camp and I was not going to play the first game because I and Akshar Patel had joined the camp late. We were playing in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy. We had been called late to the camp,” Bumrah said.
“The team was already practicing in Bangalore and we practiced with the team only for two days. Over there, the practice wickets were very green, and back then in 2013, the white ball used to swing. So, I was bowling with the new ball. I was bowling to Ricky Ponting and I used to bowl those big inswingers. I troubled everyone and I got him (Ponting) out two or three times, so they had a discussion on me that 'this guy had something different and let's play him',” he added.
Jasprit Bumrah further said he had no idea about his unorthodox action until then.
“I didn't realise that the action was that fascinating and eventually, people started to analyse that. But for me, as I told you, I was more interested in getting new things. I have that big inswinger but I didn't have that outswinger. Since childhood, I wanted to be able to bowl all deliveries. I enjoyed all of those deliveries as a child, I was never interested in watching big sixes or high-scoring games. I was interested in watching stumps being rattled, people getting hit. But yes, not getting seriously hit!” said Bumrah.
