Batsmen win you games. Bowlers win you tournaments. But none do anything alone. Cricket, as you must have figured out by now, is a team sport. Even if you field a bowler as lethal as Jasprit Bumrah, on a pitch as rewarding as the MCG’s, you would still fall short of victory if sufficient support is unavailable. India may not like it, but they are helping reinforce the belief that there is no savior in cricket.
To be Jasprit Bumrah right now might be the most desirable and undesirable thing at the same time. This year, Bumrah bowled as if he was making up for the time he lost to his injury. Of the bowlers who played more than seven Test matches this year, no one took more wickets or bowled at a better average than him. From the 71 wickets he grabbed in 2024, a staggering 30 were taken in the ongoing Border-Gavaskar Trophy, which is the highest for any pacer in a single BGT edition.
And all of that without a whiff of help from his teammates. One might argue that this is unfair. How can you take a wicket roughly every 12 runs yet still be on the lesser side at the end of the day?
But is it really unfair when only one man is steering a ship that ought to be captained by eleven? Or perhaps this really is not about fairness at all? Perhaps the highs of Bumrah and the Indian team are out of sync merely due to bad timing?
Take India before and after Bumrah’s return from injury. He missed nine Test matches between July 5, 2022, and his return to the red-ball format in the Boxing Day Test last year. During this stretch, India lost only two games, one of which was the World Test Championship Final. But what does that tell about the side? Nothing more or less than the fact that the Indian side as a whole was electrifying during that period. Bumrah, much to his chagrin, returned to find a relatively worn-out Indian side which veered more and more off-kilter as the pacer returned to his usual best.
It could also be that India are relying too much on their premier pacer. The constant near misses of late only made them more complacent in this setting, which is unnatural for this game, where the results lie largely in the hands of teams as a unit. Bumrah bowled 53.2 overs at the MCG in the fourth Test match, the most he has bowled in a single game. Altogether his series over tally is 141.2 overs, which is more than any other bowler has bowled this BGT edition. In fact, in 2024, no pacer has bowled more overs than the Indian quick. Rohit Sharma has established many times that he and the management are very careful about how Bumrah’s workload is being managed.
And for all its worth, Rohit could be right true. Bowling so many overs is not new for Bumrah. Bowling so many overs without a partner is. And India should know by now this is not how it works with this sport.
