India vs Afghanan: Smiling Jasprit Bumrah brings out Marcus Rashford-like celebration on the day of best World Cup haul | Cricket-world-cup News

More than the wicket-taking ball, it was Jasprit Bumrah’s celebration that went viral. He stood there watching the Afghan opener Ibrahim Zadran nick a peach of an away-shaper, and with his lips curling into a lovely smile, he put his index finger on his temple, presumably to announce he had out-thought Zadran. It’s a celebration seemingly inspired the England footballer Marcus Rashford but before we get to that, we must zoom into the ball first. The ball seamed away but he released it almost as if he wanted to swing it. A leg cutter that’s released like an outswinger. Bowlers usually cut their fingers across the seam to get that seaming-cut away but the smiling assassin Bumrah kills it in his own method.
L Balaji, former India swing bowler and a coach now, explains to this newspaper how Bumrah does it.

“It’s his back-spin at release that makes it deadlier. It’s what makes the seam of the ball hold up so perfectly for most of the trajectory. When Bumrah does it, the balls don’t wobble in the air too early. The seam is so upright and only then the ball will seam or swing late in the air and beat the batsman’s plans about what the ball is about to do. Pace and full length, yes but that seam has to be upright for it to deviate late.
“If it wasn’t for that back-spin, the seam of the ball would start wobbling early due to aerodynamic drag, as we call it. Put simply, the ball will fall limply without that much venom. The backspin allows the ball to cut through the air that much quicker with a proud seam and that’s what beats the fast bat-speed of even the good batsmen.” And hence, the ball travels like a seam-up delivery, and yet manages to cut away without any finger-across-seam involvement.
Zadran had no chance. He had been repeatedly beaten, and cut into half vicious nipbackers but this one straightened, even shaded out a bit, taking a slice of edge along with it. Much better batsmen have fallen for this.

On a flat Delhi surface, Bumrah picked up four for 39, his best figures in the ODI World Cup. Bumrah, who has been sidelined for almost a year due to a career-threatening back injury, looked the Bumrah of the old.
Against Afghanan, Bumrah looked like a problem solver for India. But he has had more to work out over the past year than at any time in his meteoric career. A couple of months ago, the Indian cricket team’s preparation for the ODI World Cup was in limbo. There were uncertainty over Bumrah’s availability for the tournament. There were speculations about whether he would or won’t he? Former Pakan speedster Shoaib Akhtar was among the one, who said Bumrah will never be the same bowler again. But Bumrah has shown he has retained and even honed his old venom.
Now, to that celebration. Rashford does something similar after he scores goals to acknowledge his mental health and confidence issues following the rac abuse he had received after missing the penalty in the Euro 2020 final against Italy.
Bumrah too has faced some trolling on social media. Six-years ago, the Jaipur traffic police put up an advertisement making fun of Bumrah after he had overstepped when he got the wicket of Pakan opener Fakhar Zaman in the 2017 Champions Trophy final. The left-hander was on three and the he went on to score 114 off 106 balls. The advertisement read “Don’t cross the line. You know it can be costly.” A young Bumrah lambasted the Jaipur traffic police, “Well done Jaipur traffic police this shows how much respect you get after giving your best for the country.”
During his eleven month absence from the game, the social media was full of memes, making fun of the bowler that he only wants to play the IPL. Amidst all this chaos, he took a leaf out of his hero Zlatan Ibrahimovic autobiography ‘I am Zlatan,’ where the Swedish superstar wrote “I wanted to stand up to the whole world and show everybody who’d doubted me who I really was.”

On Wednesday, when other Indian bowlers were leaking runs, struggling to get their line right, Bumrah was not only hurrying the Afghan batsmen but also intimidating them with the precision of his lengths and accuracy.Most Read
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In his first spell his numbers were 4-0-9-1. In his second spell when Azmatullah Omarazai and Hasmatullah Shahid were involved in a 121-run partnership for the fourth wicket, Bumrah kept the scoreboard under check with 3-0-12-0. At the death, he took three wickets, removing Mohammad Nabi (19), Najibullah Zadran (2), and Rashid Khan (16) to end Afghanan’s dream to reach the 300 runs mark.

Zadran failed to pick a full-length slower off-cutter, slicing it to the local boy Virat Kohli at deep cover. Nabi was pinned with Bumrah bowling wide from the crease with his trademark nip-backer. Next came another variation of the slower ball, this one to the aggressive Rashid Khan was dug in short and the slow pace induced Rashid to mime his cut to deep point where Kuldeep Yadav grabbed it on the second attempt, much to the merriment of the crowd.
Against Australia on a low and slow track of Chepauk, where the spin trio of Ashwin, Jadeja and Kuldeep earned all the praise, Bumrah did his job, picking up two wickets for just 35 runs. At Kotla, on a belter, he looked unplayable and India will be sighing in relief that he is red-hot form when he faces Pakan next.