India vs England 2nd Test: Jasprit Bumrah was on song on the second day of the second Test between India and England as he took incredible advantage of the reverse swing on offer to destroy the visitors' batting lineup.
The Dr. Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy ACA-VDCA Cricket Stadium in Visakhapatnam witnessed a fast bowling masterclass from Bumrah on Saturday as he ended up taking his 10th five-wicket haul in Test cricket.
While he had a memorable bowling figure of 6/45 to help India bowl England out for 253, Bumrah said that was no different from how he has been taking advantage of the reverse swing in domestic cricket for years.
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"In first-class cricket, if you want to take wickets in India, you have to learn to bowl reverse swing. Probably, I learned to bowl reverse swing before the conventional swing because you play a lot of cricket on slow wickets," said Bumrah.
"So you understand what you have to do over here. You have to find a way, what are the areas that you have to hit? So, yeah, in the nets, you practice all of those skills and try and execute (to get wickets)."
Out of his six wickets, Bumrah made it a heavy struggle for the likes of Ollie Pope before dismissing him with a peach of a yorker.
“At that time, the ball was relatively hard. So yes, there was some reverse swing. In reverse swing, you don't have to bowl magical deliveries every ball.
“So I had bowled a few away-going deliveries and then there was a thought going on in my head that what do I bowl? I should bowl a length delivery coming in or should I go for a yorker? But I had not bowled a yorker till then. I thought okay might as well take a chance with that and it did swing a lot. The execution was good, very happy with that.”
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Explaining the dismissals of Joe Root and Jonny Bairstow through reverse swinging deliveries, Bumrah called them extremely important wickets while avoiding rating his overall performance.
"I'm still playing, so hopefully more deliveries will come in my way. That phase was very important. To get Root and Pope at that time was very important for us because you understand that wicket does not do a lot and the wicket was a little on the slower side," he said.
Bumrah bowled another stunning delivery to get the better of England skipper Stokes who was dismissed three runs before his fifty as the star all-rounder ended up reacting astonishingly.
"I don't know what Stokes was thinking but I attempted an outswing but the ball went straight so I think maybe he had seen the shine and thought the ball would go away but it came in straight and he got bowled.
"We know he is a dangerous batsman at that moment when he bats with the lower order as he bats with freedom and takes lot of chances," said Bumrah.
His outstanding performance helped India bowl England out for 253 runs in their first innings, taking a heavy lead of 143 runs before extending it to 171 as Rohit Sharma and Yashasvi Jaiswal took the hosts to 28/0 at the end of the day's play.