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Telegraph
a day ago
- Sport
- Telegraph
Jasprit Bumrah is the finest red-ball fast bowler that ever drew breath
When the late John Arlott was writing up the life of Fred Trueman, arguably Headingley's favourite son, he asked his subject what the title of the book should be. Trueman replied: 'T'definitive biography of the finest bloody fast bowler that ever drew breath.' When Jasprit Bumrah's career is written up, it will have to be in two volumes with two separate titles. The first could be called: 'The definitive biography of the finest white-ball fast bowler that ever drew breath'. The second volume, because the game has evolved with all respect to Fred, would have to be titled: 'The definitive biography of the finest red-ball fast bowler that ever drew breath.' One trick was sufficient when India batted at Headingley in their first Test on this ground in 1952, and Trueman took three of their first four wickets before India had scored a single run. Fast outswing. Game over. To which he added an off-cutter to run through Australia here in the Ashes Test of 1961. Back then, however, only a quarter of all Test matches had been played. The sport of cricket has evolved and especially when Bumrah has been bowling. Bumrah is unique. Bumrah can do more than any other pace bowler has done. He can do what Kagiso Rabada of South Africa does with a new ball, by swinging it on the line of the stumps, and what Pat Cummins of Australia does with an old ball, AND more besides. If any numerical evidence is necessary to substantiate his status, Bumrah, with 210 wickets at 19 each, is the only person ever to have taken more than 200 Test wickets at an average below 20. England are all out for 465 and Jasprit Bumrah has his five-wicket haul! 👏 — Sky Sports Cricket (@SkyCricket) June 22, 2025 It is his action, uncoached, which makes Bumrah unique, quirky and quick. He was talent-spotted when playing street cricket in India. Had he been brought up in England, he would never have gotten past his county academy, let alone Loughborough, without being told to change his run-up or get his leading left arm higher. England's opening batsman Ben Duckett has testified during this match to the difficulty of switching on because Bumrah's actual run-up is so short: three or four paces of real intent. His arms whirl like a pair of windmill blades that are unconnected yet somehow intertwined. His hyper-extended right elbow then allows his release-point to be a foot or two closer to the batsman than any normal bowler, reducing the batsman's reaction time even more than most 90mph bowling does. Throw in Bumrah's wrist and its snap, and his fingers that can keep a seam in the perfect position for his purpose. Cues are priceless, so the batsman can begin to predict what the ball will do, but Bumrah, according to Duckett, offers none. Pavements speak of the economy of a country. Take a modern British pavement i.e. one broken, cracked or holed. Try firing the balls from a bowling machine on to such a surface (because bowling machines offer no cue of what the ball will do): this is what Zak Crawley had to cope with, and if India had posted a fourth slip, Ollie Pope would have gone cheaply at the start of his innings. Joe Root, the world number one? Bumrah has dismissed him 10 times in their 15 Tests. Without any red-ball cricket for almost six months, Bumrah would have been a bit tired and stiff on day three after taking those three wickets. He strayed down the leg side, yet he still mopped up England's last two wickets by bowling them all over the shop. England, at this rate, will soon know what a carrot feels like if Bumrah keeps topping and tailing them. Bumrah is so fast and straight that he only needs the intervention of the fielder half the time. He has bowled or trapped lbw 103 out of 210 Test wickets. Jasprit Bumrah does it again! A well-made 38 from Chris Woakes 👏 — Sky Sports Cricket (@SkyCricket) June 22, 2025 It has been said Bumrah might only play three of the five Tests in this series, but Edgbaston helps pace bowlers, and the third is at Lord's where he has yet to get on the board for five-wicket hauls, and Old Trafford favours reverse-swing, and the series could be in the balance going to the Oval…. Last winter, he broke down in Australia after bowling only 10 overs in the fifth Test but he still took 32 wickets at the knock-down price of 13 runs each. India's three other seamers in this match bowled 53 overs for 283 runs while taking the other five wickets. England's batsmen veered from an interrogation room at one end to a holiday camp at the other. India's mystery-seamer made hay, for that is what Bumrah is, the first of his kind, effectively a mystery-spinner at full bore.
The Guardian
08-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Neville, Keano, Wazza: old boys' cosy punditry cohort pulling no punches
Nostalgia ain't what it used to be. 'In my day' will be offered as advice until the end of time itself. Twas ever thus. Punditry is, by nature, viewed through the prism of the past. Glance into a Premier League press room on match day, the thickened waistlines and/or greying hair of former heroes will be present and correct. The BBC's Test Match Special is forever travelling back in time, if not so frequently as when Fred Trueman was part of the team. The self-proclaimed 'fastest bloody bowler that ever drew breath' constantly hailed back to the days of Leonard Hutton and the Yorkshire team of the 50s. TMS, despite cricket's many modernities, has never truly extracted itself from its golden era of EW Swanton and John Arlott. Football, a sport of far greater partisanship, is full of such golden ages, depending on which club you may favour. A listener to Merseyside's Radio City in the 90s on Saturday evenings could hear Ian St John, formerly half of ITV's Saint and Greavsie, hold forth on the latest failings of Liverpool FC. 'That's no' a Liverpool team,' the Saint, Kop idol turned keeper of the Shankly faith, would grumble. Concurrently, viewers of Match of the Day were presented with Alan Hansen and Mark Lawrenson, twin rocks of the 80s Liverpool machine turned shirt-sleeved critics of serial champions turned tabloid fodder 'Spice Boys'. Hansen's Clackmannanshire baritone and Lawro's Lancastrian, Mavis Riley-like whine would dissect their former club's performances, punches occasionally pulled in the hope things would turn around. They weren't angry, just disappointed. A Liverpool player of the time would have few places to turn to avoid disapproval. On Sky, Phil Thompson, jettisoned from coaching after a falling-out with Graeme Souness, became an often searing critic. Around such time, neutrality was abandoned as an impossible job, giving rise to the largely partisan pundits found on pay-TV broadcasts. Every club has one, and if not, Steve Sidwell probably played for them. A Manchester United player of 2025 has even fewer places to hide than his 90s Liverpool equivalent. In the pundit class, Sir Alex Ferguson's players pervade, including, and this is no exhaustive list, Gary Neville's groans of warning, Roy Keane's squawks of disgust, Paul Scholes's sighing disapproval and Rio Ferdinand's rising volume. Other former United stars are available. Most have contributed to a criticism of their former club that has become an avalanche. Punches are rarely pulled. None has an official role at United like, say, Micah Richards' club ambassadorship for Manchester City. The Glazer family's – and latterly Ineos's – lack of interest in a past that cannot be monetised has demobbed an army into one that now rails against them. Each reverse sees a former Ferguson charge rant, almost on a rota basis, Keane doing double shifts. Last week, as United exited the FA Cup, it was Wayne Rooney's turn, using the word 'naive' to describe Ruben Amorim. The United manager's riposte – 'That's why I'm here, at 40 years old, coaching Manchester United' – was a missile guided towards his critic's struggles to establish himself in coaching. Where Liverpool players of their doldrum era have spoken of the dangers of kicking back, Amorim retains the self-confidence to take on the old guard, becoming a gift to headlines, adding fire and colour to common-and-garden quotes follow-ups. Technology has added multitudes. Social media, where Neville's partner in punditry, the perennially online Jamie Carragher, is usually found, is key, though the collapse of X into a Dante's Inferno of wrongness has lately lessened its impact. YouTube and podcasts are where the money is. The most piping-hot takes, too. They are served hottest by The Overlap podcast, where Neville, Carragher, Keano, Jill Scott and Ian Wright plus guests – Scholesey, Wazza, Butty, Schmeichs, Becks – perch round the type of kitchen island no Cheshire footballer's mansion would be complete without. Sign up to Football Daily Kick off your evenings with the Guardian's take on the world of football after newsletter promotion This place where Neville swigs Huel and Keane munches blueberries has become a crucible of content, clipped up and cast into a world where newspaper websites, old media struggling against the tide, gobble it up to chase down clicks. The Rest Is Football, despite featuring Gary Lineker, bete noire of right-leaning thunderers, comes closest in terms of click-bait generation but has rowed back the controversy since those Euro 2024 days of calling England performances 'shit'. Food and drinks being served on The Overlap gives it a Saturday Kitchen for top, top players vibe, though the conversation resembles Loose Women with an injection of testosterone. If Keane gets aerated, it can hit Jeremy Kyle levels. As guests come and go, the overriding topic remains the fall and fall of Manchester United, one that Carragher especially enjoys. The Overlap has shown Keane's human side – his friendships with Scott and Wright revealing a softness – though the temptation to call out 'bluffers', players who are 'not a fighter', to see modern football through the prism of his own career, is rarely denied. When old teammates come together, it is rarely too long until they are fighting the battles of the past. The Manchester United players of 2025, struggling within the 3-4-3 formation the old gods dismiss despite other Premier League teams making it work, find themselves in a media environment where the treble of 1999 and accompanying triumphs are regularly relived, where Ferguson's team's unrepeatable magic has grown men cooing like the subservient young men they once were. It makes for popular, watchable content, but in constantly looking to the past, any brighter future for United feels further away than ever.
