Jasprit Bumrah’s craft, Mohammed Siraj’s heart: What Dale Steyn had to say about India’s lead pacers after super start in first Test at Eden Gardens

About Bumrah, he said: “He was, the blueprint for the day of how bowlers should bowl, not just based on the wickets that he took. Obviously, he was a standout in terms of taking his five-for, but if you watch the areas that he bowled and how he bowled, that’s how, I think the South Africans should start to look at bowling themselves. He hit the deck real hard, didn’t bowl many half volleys, or any soft deliveries. He targeted the stumps well, gave away very little, the runs that were scored off him, almost down at third man. So that’s kind of like the blueprint that I think that as a fast bowler, if you want a bowl, you want to be successful on this particular deck, you have to follow that. And if you do that, I mean, you’ll get the rewards similar to the way that he got his five-for.” Bumrah, indeed, was miserly with his bowling as he conceded at just 1.92 runs per over on his way to a 16th five-for in Test cricket.

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Former India captain Anil Kumble concurred with Steyn’s assessment. “Steyn is absolutely right in terms of understanding what lines to bowl and what lengths to bowl on a wicket like this… the sooner you understand that, the easier it is for a bowler,” the legendary legspinner added. “And Bumrah, I’m sure, in that first spell, realised that this is not a wicket where you will get swing, there wasn’t much of that. We expected the ball to swing a lot more early in the day, but that didn’t happen. So he realised that, look, you need to hit the deck and then keep varying the lengths and that’s exactly what he did. He never gave a single opportunity for the batter to go against what Jasprit does, and it was very difficult for the batter to think that they can get a boundary, easy boundary or easy runs, and that’s something that he did; control the game and controlled the pace of the batter as well. And when you do that, when you put that doubt in the batter’s mind, it’s very difficult to go past that with Bumrah.”

India’s Kuldeep Yadav congratulates Jasprit Bumrah after the pacer took a South African wicket on Day 1 of the Kolkata Test at Eden Gardens. (Express Photo by Partha Paul)

Bumrah’s lengths were key and the natural variation in the pitch helped too. Steyn said: “He gets that ball to go nice and skiddy, it almost goes underneath the bats. Even when he’s hitting a real hard length, it’s not going over the stumps. And yet when it’s hitting the stumps you think that batters can play a nice drive and get some runs going, but not the case, because he also hits you with pace, 145-140 kilometres an hour. It’s really quick.”

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But on the other side, even when he wasn’t having the best of days, Siraj showed why he is one of the most fascinating characters in this Indian dressing room as he delivered two breakthroughs in one over when he got his rhythm going later in the day. Steyn compared to how he went over the course of the English summer recently, where he was bowling like a machine over five Tests.

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“It’s all heart; the guy doesn’t stop. You know, he just carries on going,” Steyn said. “And whenever his captain throws him the ball, he seems to deliver, and he just runs in nonstop. Bowl these long spells. You know, up to 8 overs, 9-over spells. I’ve seen him do it before. And he seems to deliver every time. And depending on the conditions, he’s able to adapt. In the UK, he was swinging the ball beautifully. And he waited for his turn. I mean, he played in all those Test matches and bowled beautifully, and the wickets came for him in the last Test match. A lot of bowlers can become quite despondent, you know. If things are not going your way, you start searching, but he waited and it came good for him in that game. And the same thing happened in this game. He bowled from the far end, where it wasn’t a lot of up and down movement. It wasn’t going his way. He came back and bowled from this side here, got a little bit of reverse swing, picked up two wickets. So his heart is what stands up for me a lot of the time.”