On a sunny afternoon at the MRF Pace Foundation in Chennai two years ago, Jasprit Bumrah sheepishly asked Glenn McGrath: "Can I be a good Test bowler?" The Australian immediately sensed what was stewing at the bottom of Bumrah's mind: the short-form specialist stereotype that was being hastily spun around him. McGrath gave him a piece of advice that Bumrah still keeps close to heart. "Never form an image of yourself around what others think you are," he told the young seamer.
To allay his nerves further, he threw a few examples of bowlers who excelled across formats. "Look at someone like Brett Lee and Mitchell Starc. They are fantastic bowlers in all formats. A good bowler, you should understand is a good bowler, whether it be T20, ODIs or T20Is. You are a good bowler," he told Bumrah. McGrath himself embodies this well-worn cricketing truism.
A touch unburdened, Bumrah began shooting more questions. "Do you think I have any flaws in my bowling?" McGrath pointed out a couple of minor things with his release, and the non-bowling arm and asked him to work on it. The next time he watched Bumrah on TV, he had made those corrections, rather "adjustments".
"The one thing that struck me was how he changes his lengths from ODIs to T20s. This is the hallmark of a good bowler, and I dont see why he cant play Tests in the future," McGrath had said in an interview to The Indian Express before India's tour to Sri Lanka earlier this year.
The evening ended with McGrath unearthing funny anecdotes of his playing days, on the traps he had for Sachin Tendulkar and how he would have bowled to some of the contemporary greats. Before winding up, Mcgrath shared another slice of advice he had given Bumrah. "I told him it's about having a good game plan in the Test version, knowing where to bowl and building pressure around the batsmen. The more he plays, the more he will know," said the fast-bowling legend.
Like McGrath, Bumrah has pestered Gujarat coach Vijay Patel, too. Patel would just tell him, "Jaa khud ko dikha, tu Test bowler hai yaa IPL bowler hai." A fired-up Bumrah would storm into the nearest nets and begin converting the suppressed negative energy into furious spells. "It was the best way to motivate him. Just remind him of playing Test cricket for his country," Patel says. There were occasions when even the seasoned Parthiv Patel would excuse himself to the adjacent nets so that he wouldnt get hurt before a game.
Patel gets slightly irritated when people ask him whether or not Bumrah can become a competent Test bowler. He just tells them to check his first-class stats - 89 sticks at 25.33. To those that are still unconvinced, he asks them to watch him bowl in whites, "under the blazing Motera sun on paata wickets." "Youll see a different Bumrah," he says.
Instructive, in this regard, is the way Bumrah bowls differently in different spells in the fifty-overs cricket. Early on, he sparingly uses the yorker; instead hammers away at the good-length area, looking for away-swing, while the stock ball comes back sharply into the batsman. In the middle-overs, he brings out his cutters and knuckle balls. At the death, he unleashes his yorkers and bouncers more often. "Look, he's so flexible and knows how to bowl when," says Patel.
Both Patel and Mcgrath are convinced that he would transition from white-ball cricket to white-cloth cricket in the foreseeable future. His coach at the Mumbai Indians, Ricky Ponting, shares the sentiment.
"If you look at the skills Bumrah has and the way he has come through over the last two years, then he is ready to play Test cricket. He's got everything. He's got an unusual action, got good pace and with the brand new ball can get some good movement in the air," the former Australia skipper had said at the end of last IPL.
Now is the time?
If so, the pressing question is, when is the ripe opportunity to blood him in. Some feel why not now? The Delhi Test against Sri Lanka would have been the right time to test his mettle, especially with the way the tourists are folding up. It doesnt seem to make much of a difference if it's Umesh Yadav and Mohammed Shami bowling against them, or a rookie. They have conspired ways to self-destroy. So drafting him would kill two birds in one stone - give one the front-line bowler a respite and gauge the rookie's potential. Even if you dont pick him, he can be kept in the loop, in case someone got injured.
The counter-argument could be that you could look at the fast bowling firm of India and sigh that he would be redundant in South Africa. There's Bhuvneshwar Kumar for swing, Umesh Yadav for pace, Ishant Sharma for bounce and Mohammed Shami, well for all of these plus reverse-seam. You could add the spunk of Hardik Pandya, and feel that accommodating Bumrah is probably tough.
But India have habitually packed their bus with a fifth specialist seamer, more of a back up in case one of the front-liners picked up an injury. In 2010-11, they took left-armer Jaydev Unadkat from obscurity, more as a back-up to Zaheer Khan, with just half-a-dozen first class games under his belt. He indeed got a game too, in the first Test at Centurion. He didnt take a single wicket and was plundered for 101 runs, at 3.88 an over. Needless to say, he never played another Test.
What could go against Bumrah's inclusion might have been that he hasnt featured in a first-class game since he flit through Jharkhand in last year's Ranji Trophy semifinal. But as his twitter page suggests, he's fighting fit, has chiselled out a torso too and borrowed the swag-talk of his favourite footballer Zlatan Ibrahimovic: "Lions dont train like humans." And more importantly, a man cleared of his doubts. Certainly, Bumrah wouldnt be a more imprudent choice than Unadkat. After all, he has passed other international exams with flying colours.
