Jasprit Bumrah shows timid England seamers how risk brings reward

There may not be a better cricket pitch in the world than at Headingley. It exhilarates and frustrates in equal measure; it can exasperate, but also stimulate. Above all, it is a pitch that, especially to a bowler, says: 'Don't be afraid of taking risks, as rewards may be just around the corner.'
It is a place of extremes: England famously winning in the 1981 Ashes Test after being asked to follow on, or being bowled out for 67 by the Aussies in 2019 and still chasing 362 in the second innings to win by one wicket. On Saturday, India produced a fourth-wicket of partnership of 209 and then lost seven wickets for 41. It was classic Headingley fare. Don't take your eye off the ball for a second.
What makes it such a good surface? The bounce, firstly. There is more lift and life from this 22 yards of loam than any other in England. Edges carry to slips set halfway back to the boundary. But long hops can be cut or pulled confidently and half-volleys slide obligingly on to the middle of the bat rather than hitting the toe end. When the ball is new and the clouds are heavy, it wriggles past the bat like an elusive snake. When the ball is old and the skies are clear, it satisfies a batter's deepest cravings.
For a bowler it rewards bravery, punishes timidity. You have to speculate to accumulate. Look to pitch the ball up, but deliver it with purpose, intent. Don't just float it up there. Chris Woakes, slightly short of bowling after his ankle injury, was a bit inclined to do that. Headingley is a cruel place if you are a bit out of sync. Woakes's figures were zero for 103.
Ben Stokes, galloping to the wicket with easy rhythm and forcing the ball in to the pitch almost on a driving length, asked a question every ball. His figures were four for 66. The margins are minute. Later, Josh Tongue got some cheap spoils for targeting the stumps of the lower order. Brydon Carse paid the penalty for not making the Indian openers play enough.
This is the first Test at Headingley since 2007 when England have taken the field without James Anderson or Stuart Broad — or both — in the team (they have 97 wickets and average 26 at Headingley between them). It made Stokes's decision to put India in — based on the stats suggesting the pitch gets better day by day — more of a risk than it might otherwise have been.
Because of the precision required, the rapid outfield and the odd undulations of the ground — running slightly downhill and then up on to the pitch from the Kirkstall Lane End, and yet ploughing uphill from the Rugby Stand End, it is a tough place for a bowler uncertain of himself.
Your front foot lands slightly sooner than you expect from the Kirkstall Lane End, jarring your whole body, and you tend to overpitch, or no ball (both, in my case). You are switched to the Rugby Stand End, which feels like a steep climb, and you keep overstriding and dropping short.
Neither Carse nor Tongue had ever played a first-class match at Headingley before. England were thankful that Stokes found a similar rhythm to the brilliantly sustained spell he produced here in that epic 2019 Test, and that India totally relinquished their advantage of 430 for three. Against this unproven attack they should have got 600.
The India bowlers suffered the same extremes of fortune. As expected from a man with 205 Test wickets at an average of 19.4 — lower than anyone in history with 200 or more Test victims — Jasprit Bumrah was virtually unplayable in his first four overs. Unperturbed by the ground's unusual geography in his approach — because he doesn't have a run-up — he produced a series of wicked deliveries angling into the stumps and then snaking away.
A high-tech bowling machine set to 88mph with a hint of late outswing to right or left-hander could not have unleashed a more searching or unremitting spell. It was to Ollie Pope's and Ben Duckett's great credit that they survived it, aided by Ravindra Jadeja's dropped catch off Duckett at backward point.
With his extraordinary action and fingertip command of swing, Bumrah is a freak. He is as good in his way as the whippet-like Malcolm Marshall — generally agreed to be the best of the great West Indian attack of the 1980s — and with many of the same attributes. High pace, deception, super-skilled manipulation of the ball with his wrist and an innate understanding of batsmen, pitches and situations. Like Bumrah, his deliveries seemed laser-guided to evade bats and cannon into stumps. Marshall averaged 14 with the ball at Headingley, and, it might be recalled, even bowled England out in 1988 (taking seven for 53) with a broken thumb.
But the other India bowlers found control elusive and the pitch capricious. Mohammed Siraj conceded four an over, and Prasidh Krishna went at six. Pope and Duckett were coasting along in a second-wicket partnership of 122. Until overambition cost Duckett his wicket and could have caused Pope's downfall too, but for a second drop, this time by Jaiswal. Bumrah the sufferer. As with almost any Headingley Test, only a fool would try to predict the eventual outcome after two days' play. But England could do with Jofra Archer coming through his Sussex rehab, and soon.

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