Kamal Ghorui
GUWAHATI: If flexi-cap mutual funds delivered returns like Jasprit Bumrah, they wouldn’t need that familiar fine print about ‘market risk’. In a format where even good balls can disappear over the ropes, Bumrah offers something rarer than pace and swing — certainty.Go Beyond The Boundary with our YouTube channel. SUBSCRIBE NOW!T20 is built on volatility: take wickets, leak runs, bowl tight, miss breakthroughs. Bumrah keeps breaking that trade-off. Whether he is asked to attack up front, disrupt in the middle or shut the door at the death, he gives India’s captains the same thing — dot balls, wickets and control, often all in the same over.
Captain Suryakumar Yadav has largely held Bumrah back in this five-match series against New Zealand, using him as a middle-overs enforcer and a death-overs closer rather than a new-ball specialist. It hasn’t dulled the impact one bit.Rested for the second T20I, Bumrah was brought on in the final over of the powerplay in Sunday’s third game here at the Barsapara Cricket Stadium. Harshit Rana and Hardik Pandya shared the new ball, Ravi Bishnoi slipped in an over. Then Bumrah arrived — and struck immediately. First ball, Tim Seifert’s offstump was uprooted.Bumrah angled one in from over the wicket, hit a hard length and beat the opener for pace and movement.
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Rana and Pandya had already removed Devon Conway and Rachin Ravindra early but Bumrah — with Bishnoi squeezing in tandem — ensured New Zealand never rebuilt. Bumrah finished with his familiar miserly figures of 4-0-17-3 to earn Player of the Match as New Zealand were restricted to 153/9.“I was keeping an eye when Harshit and Hardik bowled, what is the best option over here (on this pitch). Obviously when I came on, the ball had become a little scuffed up,” Bumrah said at the presentation. “Usually, the white ball doesn’t swing for long. So it was about using my best option.”
His spell was a study in authority. He bowled the sixth over to finish the powerplay, returned in the 11th to keep the squeeze on and then cleaned up the back end. Kyle Jamieson was bowled in his 18th-over burst, Bumrah was involved in the run-out of Matt Henry soon after and he came back in the final over to have Mitchell Santner picked out in the deep.Asked if he was enjoying being used away from his customary new-ball role, Bumrah sounded perfectly at home with the shifting brief. “I’m happy as far as I’m able to contribute. So if the team wants me to bowl with the new ball, I’m more than happy. If they want me to bowl in the end, I’m happy to do that (too),” he said, stressing that flexibility is non-negotiable in modern T20 cricket.The night also carried personal weight. Bumrah has completed 10 years in international cricket, a milestone he spoke about with a touch of emotion.“I, as a child, only dreamt to play one game. Ten years playing for your country, being a pure fast bowler, fighting aches and pains, assumptions, opinions,” he said. “People gave me six months. It’s a feather in my cap (playing for 10 years) and I’ll keep it with me.”
