Asia Cup 2025: Jasprit Bumrah, the go-to bowler at the death for all captains

Dubai: Ask the most accomplished white-ball batters in the world who they’d rather not face towards the closing stages of an innings, and the overwhelming majority will reply: Jasprit Bumrah.

Not without reason is the 31-year-old the most feared bowler in contemporary cricket. It isn’t as if he isn’t lethal with the new ball, but towards the end, he assumes a whole new dimension.

At the best of times, he is impossible to line up. The release of the ball just that little closer to the batter than anyone else, courtesy a hyper-extended right elbow, makes length-picking a challenging proposition. Throw in his multiple variations, each with no visible or evident cues, and it’s not hard to see why he is the go-to bowler at the death for all captains.

Both at the international and franchise level, teams have tended to reserve as many of Bumrah’s four overs in a 20-over fixture as possible for the second half of the innings. When he comes on for his final burst, batters subconsciously make a mental shift.

The desire to go after him is tempered by the knowledge that he can produce a sandshoe-crushing yorker or conjure a magical slower ball with no discernible change in action. While his burgeoning bag of tricks is the obvious talking point, one of the less celebrated facets is his relentless accuracy, which enables him to assume greater potency.

Nowhere was Bumrah’s unwavering grip towards the backend more evident than in the final of the T20 World Cup last June. Heinrich Klaasen seemed to have swung the title South Africa’s way with a stunning assault on Axar Patel when, in a last desperate throw of the dice, Rohit Sharma summoned Bumrah earlier than normal, in the 16th over with 30 needed and six wickets standing.

Bumrah conceded just four, Hardik Pandya dismissed Klaasen in the next over and the game turned on its head. It was still South Africa’s match to win, 22 required in three overs, when Bumrah produced another masterful over, going for two and cleaning up Marco Jansen. In a spell of 2-0-6-1, he had driven the Proteas into a brick wall. Game sealed and delivered, with a nice ribbon tied around the gift.

At this T20 Asia Cup, India have used Bumrah in a role largely unusual to him. Coming into the tournament, in 70 previous T20Is, he had bowled three overs in the Powerplay just once, against Australia in Visakhapatnam in 2019. In 244 T20 matches in all, he had reprised that feat a mere 11 times.

But twice here in Dubai, Suryakumar Yadav has given him three overs on the bounce first up. Much of it is with one eye on the future, to figure out who else the death options could be if India continue to invest in the spin basket and leave Arshdeep Singh, India’s next best death-overs specialist, out to warm the bench.

In time, maybe even next week, India might revert to type and save at least half of Bumrah’s allotment for later, or they may not. For now, this is the preferred mode of operation though India haven’t really been tested in the last few overs at this initial stage.

Champions like Bumrah are worth more than their numbers because of the threat they carry and the pressure that overs in their bag create, often leading to success for other bowlers. He might be a Powerplay exponent for the time being but Bumrah at the death? Bring him on already.