BackJasprit Bumrah and Hardik Pandya: IPL babies answering Dhoni’s prayers
Two wins is all that remains between this 22-year-old twosome and a World Cup winner's medal
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A little over two months back, outside of those that followed the Indian Premier League closely, not many knew a great deal about two young men who had received rave reviews from the big men involved with their franchise.
Much of the appreciation that came the way of Jasprit Bumrah and Hardik Pandya was dismissed cynically—in what has almost become a norm—as talking up average cricketers who were plying their trade for a more than average IPL franchise. Bumrah and Pandya, both happy 22 year olds, have been with Mumbai Indians all their IPL life; with their exponential growth as cricketers and individuals, they have shown that not everything is hype, that not always do we need to be cynical.
With the skill-sets they possess, Bumrah and Pandya have established themselves in the Indian Twenty20 International set-up, for now. Bumrah the paceman who has worked tremendously hard with Lasith Malinga to develop a mean yorker at the death, Pandya the allrounder who can give the cricket ball a mighty thwack from the off and send down three, sometimes four tidy overs of seam-up. Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s prayers answered, you could say.
Bumrah’s unusually complex slingy action makes him hard to pick, especially for those who haven’t seen much of him. From January 23, when he made a somewhat fortuitous One-Day International debut in Sydney, to now, Bumrah has gone from unknown commodity to marked man, but for all the video analyses, he is still hard to pick. Apart from his action, the fact that he can get the ball to dart in or move away from the right-hand batsman with little change in wrist position adds to the mystique around the young man who is perfectly at ease with a ball in hand, but is otherwise a shy, taciturn individual somewhat uncomfortable under the arc-lights.
Pandya is the diametric opposite. Armed with the ‘wanna’ and ‘gonna’ that comes nearly as quickly as the ubiquitous ear-stud, Pandya loves the camera. He is a showman who isn’t afraid to be seen as one; he leaps up and clicks his heels in celebration—Brett Lee and Stuart Binny-like—upon taking a wicket, he enjoys each catch, no matter how straightforward, with an abandon that is designed to put a smile on your face or irritate you beyond words. Bumrah is old school; Pandya is the new, feisty, in-your-face kid on the block. Between them, they have offered options that Dhoni has craved for so long; they have also delivered when it has mattered.
One of the things that stands out in the younger generation of today is the self-confidence and the self-belief that even Virat Kohli concedes he didn’t have when he made his India debut some eight years back. “They have played so much T20 cricket in the IPL, and played with big stars. In this format, their preparation and mental set-up is very different to mine when I came into the team. We didn’t have this much exposure of playing with big players, or of having to perform at this level," said Kohli. “These people have played IPL finals, performed in different situations. They have brought that confidence here, which is a very good thing. They have not paid that much attention to who is in the opposition, who I am bowling to or batting against. They have backed their skills and that has been an x-factor for our team in the last few series."
That confidence has manifested itself in wonderful comebacks for Bumrah in India’s last two games at the ICC World Twenty20 2016. In the Super 10 game against Bangladesh in Bangalore a week back, Bumrah got off to a nightmarish start on the field—misfield first ball to gift Tamim Iqbal a boundary, dropped regulation catch to offer the left-hand opener a fresh lease, and then blasted out of sight in thanksgiving by said batsman, who smashed him for four fours the over after the drop.
As Dhoni was to point out later, it was the first time in his brief international career that Bumrah was put under pressure. He responded magnificently—just 13 runs in his last two overs, and six in the penultimate over of the chase when the yorkers homed in on limb and stumps as if by rote.
Then, against Australia in Mohali on Sunday, Bumrah was taken to the cleaners in his first over by Usman Khawaja. Second over of the match, four fours, 17 runs. So what does Bumrah, shy smile but otherwise emotionless visage, do? Finish with 1 for 32 from four, cleaning up Glenn Maxwell with a slower one that only arrived long after the batsman had completed his agricultural swipe.
Dhoni attributed Bumrah’s ability to bounce back to a belief in his own abilities. “The self-confidence in executing or knowing what you’re strength is," the Indian skipper said of what makes Bumrah the calm performer that he is, especially in the end overs. “If you can bowl the yorker, you can easily fall back on it. People talk about Malinga—if you see his strength, yes he can swing the new ball but if somebody goes after him, he’s very good with the yorkers. He has a slightly different action. The same is applicable to Bumrah also. He has a different action and he actually watches the batsman right till the end. There have been quite a few instances where the batsman has gone for the lap shot and he’s actually bowled the slower delivery, which means he is watching the batsman right till the end. That’s what gives him the strength and also the confidence that if needed, he can bowl a yorker—it gives him the confidence to come back and bowl two very good overs for the team."
Bumrah has worked a lot with Malinga in the Mumbai Indians nets and quite clearly has picked up plenty from the master slinger. By his own acknowledgement, Malinga is his idol and role model, and the master will have taken more than a little bit of pride in the manner in which his ward has progressed in international cricket in such a short span of time.
Pandya brings more versatility than Bumrah—one of the weak links in the field, Dhoni has said of the pacer – with his ferocious ball-hammering, his brisk and busy medium pace and an energy and enthusiasm on the field that has perked up several of the seniors. He loves a challenge, tackling it with not just a calm head but also a smile. He will be the first to admit that he lucked it out in the final over against Bangladesh, but it wasn’t his fault that Mushfiqur Rahim and then Mahmudullah picked out deep midwicket off two successive innocuous deliveries.
The Baroda lad is about as expressive as Bumrah isn’t, but he isn’t just bluster and bravado. Dhoni is very quick and adept at sussing what is showboating and what is the real deal. In the T20 world, given the resources available, Pandya is very much the real deal—crucial, quick runs down the order and key strikes at a decent economy beyond the Power Play.
“Hardik is going through a phase where there will be ups and downs. As a youngster, you are full of confidence and that’s where cricket steps in," the skipper pointed out. “You get a ride of your own, you score big in a game, then you don’t for a few games, then you come back strong. Once you go through these chapters, you become a more accomplished cricketer."
Two wins. That’s all that remains between this 22-year-old twosome and a World Cup winner’s medal. And that too just over two months since donning India colours for the first time. Two to tango, did someone say?
Mint is in content partnership with Wisden India for 2016 ICC World T20.
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