Sanjay Manjrekar Compares Jasprit Bumrah's Ability To Take Wickets On Flat Pitches To Richard Hadlee

IND vs ENG 1st Test: Ex-India cricketer Sanjay Manjrekar compared Jasprit Bumrah to the legendary Sir Richard Hadlee and heaped praises on the star India fast bowler's ability to take wickets on flat surfaces. “We’ve seen four hundred in the match so far — three from India and one from England — but which bowler has been truly special? For me, it’s just Bumrah,” Manjrekar was quoted as saying on JioHotstar.

"Just the ability to manufacture a wicket every time he came into the attack is what stands out" he added.

While trying to draw a parallel between the two bowlers, Manjrekar said, "The one bowler that comes to mind, someone with that kind of impact single-handedly, is Sir Richard Hadlee. He played for a New Zealand team with a relatively weaker attack, but every time he came on, you felt a wicket was around the corner. The common thread between the two is mastery — when I watched Hadlee from close quarters, he felt like a true master of his trade. I get that same impression with Bumrah."

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Manjrekar was especially impressed by Bumrah's late surge on Day 2 against England's star batter Ollie Pope, who had scored an unbeaten knock of 116 runs, which helped the hosts score 209/3 at stumps on the second day. Initially, the Shubman Gill-led side had posted a mammoth target of 471 runs, on the back of Shubman Gill's career-best knock of 147 runs and Rishabh Pant's scintillating century. The hosts were looking under pressure and that too against Bumrah, who registered figures of 3/45.

With Ollie Pope’s hundred for me, it was also Bumrah in the final over. Just look at this guy — the kind of wicket he picked on a pitch like this. "We saw during the 2023 Cricket World Cup how he put himself in a different league from the rest of the fast bowlers, and here he is doing it again. The dismissal came with such nonchalance, and that’s something only Bumrah can manufacture. Ben Stokes does it for England to some degree, but this guy does it consistently” he added.

As Pope began his innings cautiously and scored his ninth Test hundred, where he had smashed 13 fours- Bumrah gave the visitors the much-needed breakthrough by dismissing Duckett after both and Pope had stitched a partnership of 122 runs for the second wicket. Pope did survive a nervy dismissal when he had scored 60 runs as he had edged the pacer during the last session but the Indian pacer bounced back brilliantly.

And just before stumps, Bumrah tried to dismiss Brook. Brook had top-edged a pull shot towards mid-wicket and the replay showed that he had overstepped and that turned out to be his third no-ball.

“In that final over, with Harry Brook trying to survive, what happened was pure drama. We witnessed the genius of Bumrah when he got him to pull a short ball he hadn’t used throughout the innings. The setup was brilliant — delivery after delivery outside the off stump — and then came that surprise bouncer. Nowhere in the corner of his mind would Harry Brook have expected it. It came, and he instinctively played the shot" he concluded.