I learned to bowl reverse swing before conventional swing: Jasprit Bumrah

Thanks to Bumrah’s brilliance, India restricted England to 253 in 55.5 overs after putting up 396 on the board, led by Yashasvi Jaiswal’s 290-ball 209. Left-arm wrist-spinner Kuldeep Yadav also starred with 3/71, but it was Bumrah who was instrumental in ensuring that the hosts got a significant first-innings lead of 143. By stumps, they had extended the lead to 171 as Jaiswal and skipper Rohit Sharma added 28 in five overs.

Speaking at the end of the second day’s play, Bumrah asserted that playing first-class cricket in India, he has learned the act of reverse swing. “In first class cricket, if you want to take wickets in India, you have to learn to bowl reverse swing. Probably, I learned to bowl reverse swing before the conventional swing because you play a lot of cricket on slow wickets,” he said.

“So you understand what you have to do over here. You have to find a way, what are the areas that you have to hit. So, yeah, in the nets, you practice all of those skills and try and execute (to get wickets),” the right-arm pacer added.

Pope was a thorn in India’s flesh in the first innings and was looking good on Saturday as well. However, Bumrah produced a searing yorker to knock him over, the video of which has gone viral among cricket fans.

“At that time, the ball was relatively hard. So yes, there was some reverse swing. In reverse swing, you don’t have to bowl magical deliveries every ball. So I had bowled a few away going deliveries and then there was a thought going on in my head that ‘what do I bowl? I should bowl a length delivery coming in or should I go for a yorker’? But I had not bowled a yorker till then. I thought okay might as well take a chance with that and it did swing a lot. The execution was good, very happy with that,” Bumrah explained, while speaking about the dismissal.

While he has plenty of tricks up his sleeve, bamboozling a batter like Stokes is no mean feat. The England captain was left stunned for the second time in a row by Bumrah. Asked about the England captain’s bewildered look, the Indian pacer said, “I don’t know what Stokes was thinking but I attempted an outswing but the ball went straight so I think maybe he had seen the shine and thought the ball would go away but it came in straight and he got bowled.

“We know he is a dangerous batsman at that moment when he bats with the lower-order as he bats with freedom and takes lot of chances,” he added.

India will look to build on their lead on Day 3 and hope they can set a huge total for England to chase in the second innings.

–By A Cricket Correspondent