Not just his batsmanship, even the primal human instinct to dodge sudden danger failed Saim Ayub. If cricket, like gymnastics, had judges, they would be flashing 10s at Jasprit Bumrah’s perfect yorker to Saim. That dismissal from the India-Pakistan game in Colombo would soon become the most-watched, most-memed and most-layered clip of the World T20 so far.
Such was the speed and precision of the Bumrah missile that it didn’t give the left-handed Pakistan opener time to even pull out his front-leg from harm’s way. As for Saim’s bat, it had barely reached his knees in its journey from shoulder-level to the feet. Saim lbw Bumrah – wasn’t just another wicket on the scoreboard, it was more. It was a short story with a past, subplots, intrigue, consequences and a twist at the end. There was something in it for everyone.
For Pakistan, the Bumrah yorker was a brutal reminder to the widening gap in the cricket quality of the two nations that were once equals. Saim, 24, is the highest paid Pakistan T20 league player but when it mattered, he was too slow to react – an apt metaphor of an erstwhile inventive nation failing to keep pace with the ever-changing cricketing world.
For South Africa, India’s opponent in Sunday’s Super 8 game, the Bumrah cannonball would plant a seed of doubt in the minds of their frontline batsmen with high backlift.
For India, this was a heartening early sign – the most effective tool in their shed was at its sharpest best. In a tournament format, a fully-fit Bumrah was priceless. It was reassuring that despite his long years on the international circuit, his many injuries, he still remains unplayable and unreadable.
The sight of Bumrah purring on his run-up like a F1 car after tyre change was also a salute to the bowler who knows his body well and is clear about his priorities. It is a hat-tip to the team management who didn’t get pressurised in playing him in games that he was to sit out.
Only a well-rested pacer, free of injury concerns, could have bowled the delivery with which Bumrah got Saim. A yorker by definition is a ball that lands in the block-hole – the area between the bat and the pad and is headed to the stumps. The close to the body ‘line and length’ of the ball doesn’t give the batsman the space to free his arms and have a go at the ball.
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But modern-day batsmen have found ways around the problem. The bats with curved bottom – the kind Hardik Pandya uses – helps them to scoop it out from the rubble and launch it to the boundary rope. Move around the crease, stepping out and meeting the ball before it bounces or turn the bat around and guide it behind stumps – these are few newer methods to defang yorkers. Thankfully, these stunts work only against plain-vanilla yorkers, not the well-disguised, bolts from blue variety that masters like Bumrah unleash.
If yorkers were just about line and length, there would be dime-a-dozen of such bowlers hurling them at a ‘six-an-over’ frequency. “It’s impossible,” says the greatest fast bowler of all time Wasim Akram, underlining the degree of difficulty in executing that dream toe-crusher.
“Puri body lagaani padti hai,” he would say while explaining the physical effort that goes into mastering the ball responsible for the most dramatic visuals in cricket. He also gives details of his training – it’s a regime that is certain to send chills down the spine of present-day T20 bowlers, blessed to get millions for bowling 4 overs.
“For a bouncer you just run-in and hit the ball a little back and it goes up. For a length ball a little more effort is needed. But for yorkers, you have to use the entire body. You have to put in all the effort. You have to do a high arm action so that the ball goes under the bat,” he says.
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Akram adds one lovely trivia too. When bowling a yorker, he would imagine he was the West Indian great Curtly Ambrose. “It wasn’t that I would change my action but I would just imagine that I was Ambrose so that I would be towering over the crease when bowling the yorker”. Bringing out the inner Ambrose wasn’t enough, Akram would also bowl just yorkers for an hour after his regular net session.
Bumrah in this World T20, seems to be in that same space of preparedness. In the two games that he has played, he has frequently bowled the yorker. Go back to the highlights to see how he pushes his “puri body” – that frame that has taken many blows, endured the surgeon’s knife. The results have been spectacular – not the batsmen who get out, even those following them, go through the trauma.
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That India-Pak game had another interesting Bumrah over. On crease were inexperienced wicket-keeper Usman Khan and veteran Babar Azam. Bumrah would test Usman with a yorker but the batsman would be able to keep it out of his stumps and take a single.
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Now, Babar was on high alert, expecting a yorker. It’s here that Bumrah’s variation kicks in. So Babar, keyed in to face a ball at the base of the stumps, had his eyes wide open and bat in readiness to quickly come down. That’s when Bumrah, with no real change of action or any clue from his finger or wrist position, surprised Babar with his special off-cutter slow ball. Too early in the shot, Babar i played it upplishly. If there was a short-cover, he could have been out.
The South Africans too will be waiting for that late-swinging yorker. They know it’s on the way but don’t know when it will arrive. That is the twist in this tale – it’s tough to beat the ball that tails in at the final moment to beat your instinct.
