The man with the golden arm: Is Bumrah India’s greatest-ever fast bowler?
Kolkata: Jasprit Bumrah is unlikely to forget the last two days. On Tuesday evening, the Indian pace spearhead was announced the winner of the Sir Garfield Sobers Trophy – the topmost honour for being the ICC Cricketer of the Year for 2024 – an icing on the cake after being chosen the ICC Test Cricketer of the Year earlier on Monday.
He now joins an elite club of three other Indian cricketers: Virat Kohli (2018), Ravi Ashwin (2016) and Rahul Dravid (2004) to have won both the Sir Garfield Sobers Trophy for ICC Men’s Cricketer of the Year and the ICC Men’s Test Cricketer of the Year award in the same year.
Much expected, as an Indian cricket fan may say, with him hardly putting a foot wrong for the whole of last year. It’s also the right moment to rake up a contentious debate - whether ‘Boom Boom’ is the greatest ever fast bowler from India?
The operative word here is ‘fast.’ In a country where the original ‘Fab Four’ in Test cricket comprised of four legendary spinners and the top two wicket-takers in Tests are also tweakers, quality pace bowlers have been always come at a premium. The great Kapil Dev is the third-highest wicket taker among the seamers with 434 wickets and there were likes of Javagal Srinath, Zaheer Khan or Ishant Sharma – all men of varying skillsets but none really capable of striking a mix of terror and awe in the batters like Bumrah over the past one-and-a-half years.
Remember the press conference ahead of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, where the smiling assassin took exception to being called a medium-pacer? “Yaar, I’ve bowled 150 km/h…you can call me a fast bowler,” was Bumrah’s reply. He backed it up with a 32-wicket haul in the BGT which prompted the jury to nominate him as the Player of the Series despite India’s 3-1 series defeat. The time is ripe to get this straight: Bumrah is certainly in line to be India’s greatest fast bowler across all formats so far and very much up there among the global practitioners of his craft.
There will always be a counterpoint to this, especially since the cricket romantics of India will be inclined to consider the contribution of Kapil as the last word – with his unique combination of fitness, mastery over swing and seam and sheer longevity. Bumrah, on the other hand, is a freak of nature with a frontloading action which makes him put his body on the line every time, raising the big question mark over the length of his career.
At 31, he has already had a back surgery which forced him out of action for more than a year while the current one – initially referred to as a back spasm in Australia – is also not looking good. However, a closer look at his achievements on his comeback in 2023 will put things in perspective. Bumrah has been the fastest among the Indian bowlers to reach 200 Test wickets and fourth fastest overall with an average of 19.38, which means he conceded less than 20 runs for taking a wicket in Test cricket.
Believe it or not, it means fewer runs conceded per wicket compared to the feared West Indies greats like Malcolm Marshall (20.94), Joel Garner (20.97) and Curtly Ambrose (20.99).
