Jasprit Bumrah is the toast of team-mates after his 5-wicket haul.
Credit: PTI Photo
Kolkata: It's not often that Jasprit Bumrah claims a fifer in a Test and India still end up on the wrong side of a result. Out of his 15 five-wicket hauls in 50 completed matches, India have won nine, drawn two and lost only four with two of them coming during the recent tour of England (Leeds and Lord's) besides one on his debut against South Africa in Cape Town in 2018.
The fate of his 16th career five-wicket haul is yet to be decided, but it has certainly put India in a position from where they can fancy their chances of winning.
On a warm Friday here at the Eden Gardens, the 31-year-old pacer ripped the heart out of South Africa batting for impressive figures of 5/27, ending the visitors' innings at 159 in 55 overs.
From his first over, after Temba Bavuma opted to bat first, Bumrah was on the money though a wicket eluded him for a while. Even as Mohammed Siraj leaked runs at one end, Bumrah kept it tight, teasing the outside edge or rapping the pads.
The wicket appeared to be around the corner, but these days the team management has to keep an eye on his workload as well.
Spells of 3-4 overs have been the norm in recent months, but skipper Shubman Gill kept him in attack even after five overs. Result: wickets in sixth and seventh overs. Impact: South Africa could muster only 102 more runs after a 57-run opening stand.
The pitch did offer some help for the bowlers, but it was not a sub-160 wicket either. The variable bounce and turn kept both pacers and spinners in business but it was not until Bumrah found his length right that wickets began to fall. Bumrah explained the reason behind finding his range late in his opening spell.
"When the ball is nice and hard, maybe the deviation would be a little quicker," Bumrah reasoned.
"As and when the ball becomes softer, the deviation becomes less and then your accuracy comes into play. So, when I bowled the first over, everything happened. The ball swung, it stayed low, it went high. So, I said, it's a little difficult to understand what's the right length. So, you keep bowling and keep figuring things out 'okay, it's shaping in this manner.' So, that was my reading initially that first 3-4 balls, everything happened. As and when the ball became softer, it did settle down. It wasn't happening a lot and the deviation wasn't consistent. So, then we realised, yes, when the ball is nice and hard, the seam is pronounced, it'll do a little more. And then as and when the ball becomes softer, it will settle."
Most of Bumrah's wickets came off deliveries that were just short of length, leaving the batters undecided as to press forward or stay put. The pacer made most of this indecisiveness to reap rich rewards.
Conditions have hardly mattered to Bumrah -- be it the seaming surfaces in England or the fast, bouncy pitches in Australia or slow and low wickets at home. That said wickets at home, where spinners generally gobble up the majority of wickets, it must be more rewarding to pick fifers.