Jasprit Bumrah has been the brightest spot for India in the current tour of Australia. In the first Test, the pacer took eight wickets while in the second he returned with four wickets. In the ongoing third Test in Brisbane, Bumrah took a six-wicket haul in the first innings. While he has been brilliant, the same cannot be said about others. Bumrah on Monday defended the struggling Indian team in Australia and played down talk of additional pressure on him, saying it’s a side in transition and given his experience, it’s his “job” to shoulder extra responsibility
Bumrah was also asked about Indian batting, and he gave a cheeky reply. Here’s how the conversation went.
Reporter: “Hi, Jasprit. What is your assessment of the batting, although you are not the best person to answer the question, but what do you think about the situation of the team, considering the conditions in Gabba?”
Bumrah: “It’s an interesting question. But, you are questioning my batting ability. You should use Google and see who has got the most number of runs in a Test over. But, jokes apart. That’s another story.”
Bumrah had notched 35 runs in an over by England’s Stuart Broad in Birmingham in 2022.
Having taken a seemingly erroneous call of bowling first in the third Test at the Gabba, India conceded a huge first-innings total of 445 despite Bumrah returning 6/76. In response, the visitors were 51/4 on a rain-hit third day with questions being raised about batters’ technique and the quality of bowling, save for Bumrah.
“We don’t, as a team, point fingers at each other and we don’t want to get into that mindset where we are pointing fingers at each other that ‘you should do this, you should do that’,” Bumrah told media after stumps when asked for his assessment of India’s batting.
“We, as a team, are going through a transition, new players are coming here and it’s not the easiest place to play cricket. Over here, it’s a different atmosphere with this wicket being a different challenge so yeah, we are not looking at that.”
Bumrah, who leads the bowling chart in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy with 18 wickets so far, defended the Indian attack amid chatter that he is not getting adequate support from fellow bowlers. “As a bowling unit, as I said, we are in transition so it’s my job to help the others. I have played a little more than them so I am trying to help them,” said the owner of 191 Test wickets in just 43 Tests.
With PTI inputs
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