Is the Ollie Pope yorker his best delivery? Jasprit Bumrah answers

The fast bowler brings India back into the game with memorable figures on a placid track.
 By Staff Writer Feb 3, 2024, 21:29 IST
Jasprit Bumrah removes Ollie Pope in Ind vs Eng 2nd Test?width=963&height=541&resizemode=4
Ollie Pope had no answer to Jasprit Bumrah's beauty leaving his stumps in a mess.

Jasprit Bumrah was on fire on Day 2 of the second Test at Visakhapatnam. The fast bowler produced a lethal spell of 6/45 to derail England’s innings on a good batting surface. At one time, England were looking comfortable at 114-1 with Zak Crawley and Ollie Pope going along nicely. But the wicket of Crawley off the bowling of Axar Patel turned things around for the visitors. Bumrah then returned for another burst and produced one of the most memorable spells of his Test career.

He especially mentioned how first-class cricket helped in his growth and how he learned the art of reverse-swing. He said he focuses on setting up the batter rather than aiming for magical delivery every ball. The ball to Ollie Pope was almost an unplayable one as it shattered the stumps bringing the delight to the bowler. Pope’s wicket was crucial in the sense that he scored an excellent 196 in the last match to take the game away from India.

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"The ball was relatively hard and reversing. So when the ball is reversing, you don't need to bowl magical deliveries every ball. You don't go inswing outswing every ball. So I bowled a few away-going deliveries then I was thinking what should I bowl next? Should it be a length delivery coming in or should I go for a yorker? I hadn't bowled a yorker till then so decided to go with the yorker. It did swing a lot, the execution was good so very happy," Bumrah said after the end of the day.

"I'm still playing so hopefully more deliveries will come as I said, I'm very happy as it was very important to get Joe Root and Ollie Pope out at that point," he further added.

Here is Bumrah's magical delivery to Ollie Pope:

He also mentioned how he set up England’s best batter Joe Root. After mixing up outswingers with inswingers, he bowled one moving away resulting in Root edging it straight to Shubman Gill at first slip. It was a classic example of skilful reverse swing bowling. The fast bowler said that he learnt the art of reverse swing before conventional swing in order to be successful in Indian conditions.

"In first-class cricket, if you want to take wickets in India, you've got to learn reverse swing. Probably I learnt reverse swing before I learnt conventional swing. You play a lot of cricket on slow wickets, you understand what you need to do over here. You have to find a way. You need to figure out the areas you want to hit. In the nets, you practice all those skills and then try and execute the same in matches," Bumrah said after the day's play.

Bumrah also dismissed Jonny Bairstow, Ben Stokes, Tom Hartley, and James Anderson to break the back of England’s batting order. During his opening spell, he was smashed for four fours in an over by Zak Crawley but he came back like a genius and brought India back into the game. Eventually, England were dismissed for 253. At the end of the day, India finished their second innings on 28-0. They currently lead by 171 runs with 10 wickets in hand.

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