India Test pacer Jasprit Bumrah won hearts of cricket fans after his team’s win in the Cape Town Test. India became the first Asian team to win a Test at Newlands and leveled the two-Test series 1-1.
Mohammed Siraj and Jasprit Bumrah both shined with the ball in the Test victory. Siraj picked 6/15, his Test career best in South Africa first innings, routing them to 55 all-out. In response, India posted 153 runs with Virat Kohli top-scoring with 46.
Then Aiden Markram made 106 to take South Africa to 176 runs in second innings; but Jasprit Bumrah’s 6/61 kept the hosts’ lead to 78 runs. India chased down the 79-run target with 7 wickets in hand to win the Test.
Mohammed Siraj was named Player of the Match and in the post-match presentation Jasprit Bumrah accompanied him to act as a translator. Siraj credited Bumrah for giving him guidance and messages as to how the pitch is behaving, making his job easy.
"Jassi bhai hamesha jab start karte hain toh message milta hai ki kya wicket pe kon si line or length better hai. Toh wo message milne se mujhe zyada sochne ki zarurat nahi rehti hai, bas consistent wo chiz pe work karenge to success milega. Bas yahi. Wo saamne end pe rahe toh bohot hi acha lagta hai (When Bumrah starts bowling, he gives me an idea of what kind of wicket it is and which length is better on it. I don't have to think much and just have to follow it consistently to get success. When he is there at the other end, it feels good)," said Siraj in the post-match presentation.
However, when Bumrah translated the message, he showed great humility by not naming himself and or gave credit to himself. He instead chose to attribute their success to the collective experience of the duo and the team management.
Bumrah translated and said: “So yeah, because when we play along together, he gets the message earlier because of your experience. We try to analyse the wicket quicker so that communication goes in the bowling circuit that this is the wicket and this is what we are looking to do. So that helps him sometimes.”
Here is the video:
While Mohammed Siraj won the Player of the Match, Jasprit Bumrah was jointly named the Player of the Series for his 12 wickets, award which he shared with South Africa’s Dean Elgar.
