With his 15th five-wicket haul during the second day of the India-England Third Test, Indian pacer Jasprit Bumrah claimed his first five-wicket haul at Lord’s and got his name on the honours board at the legendary ground. It also meant that Bumrah broke former Indian captain Kapil Dev’s record of having the most five-fors by an Indian in overseas Tests.
Bumrah surpassed Dev’s record of 12 overseas five-fors with his 13th five-wicket haul in overseas Tests for India. Former Indian captain had achieved the feat in 66 Tests overseas, while Bumrah has claimed this in 35 overseas Tests. Former England pacer and their second highest wicket-keeper in Tests, Stuart Broad, has showered praise on Bumrah, terming him as a bowler who ‘challenges the best batters of the world’.
“To be honest, that spell of getting Stokes (Ben), Root (Joe) and Woakes (Chris) summed up Jasprit Bumrah of what he does really. He challenges the best batters in the world. Left, right handers, brings all sort of dismissals, stumps and nick off into play. And it was amazing drama, amazing theater. It was wonderful. It was bit of swing, bit of carry. Few boundaries away but no one had settled. And then the one moving back down the hill to Stokes through the gate, Off stump out of the ground, was just you know Jasprit Bumrah can do that. And he really deserved to end up on that honours board,” Broad told Sky Sports.
While Bumrah had taken the wicket of Harry Brook on the opening day of the Lord’s Test, the Indian pacer took the wickets of Joe Root, Ben Stokes and Chris Woakes in a seven-ball burst on the second day to leave England reduced to 271/7 from 251/4. The Indian pacer then has to wait for his fifth wicket for a while as India had asked for a change of the second new ball after bowling more than ten overs with it. The replaced ball saw England Batsmen Jamie Smith and Brydon Carse stitch together a partnership for 84 runs for the eighth wicket. The replaced ball again had to be replaced after some time and Broad was of the view that Bumrah would have got his first five-wicket haul at Lord’s much earlier in the day had Indian captain Shubman Gill not asked for the second new ball change after ten overs.
“I think he would have probably ended up on it a bit earlier if they had not changed the ball. The ball was swinging around, nipping and it went out of shape and they changed it. And you could tell immediately that Shubman Gill was frustrated with what happened. They given them a softer ball that what they were looking to change and it didn’t do as much from that moment. So Bumrah had to show a bit of patience to get the five,” Broad added.
Bumrah, who now has 215 wickets in 47 Tests with an average of 19.49 and best figures of 6/27, also matched former Pakistan pacer Wasim Akram’s record of 11 five-wicket hauls in SENA (South Africa, England, New Zealand and Australia) countries.
The Indian pacer talked about Friday’s five-wicket haul as a special one. “It’s really special. We don’t come here (Lord’s very often, maybe every four years. You never know how many matches you’ll get to play here. As a child, you see a lot of Test cricket played here. Being on the honours board feels good. I was excited to play at Lord’s.” Bumrah told BBC.
