Jasprit Bumrah: A legend in making - Onkar Karandikar

Let's all hope Jasprit Bumrah remains fit and plays for a long long time.

What a bowler!! A very special player!!

He has incredible accuracy, lightening pace, can swing the ball both ways, has toe-crushing yorkers, a well directed bouncer.
He is a complete fast bowler with every weapon ready his in repertoire.
One more thing which makes him lethal is he's relentless, does not give a breathing space to batsmen. He has calm and shrewd head on his shoulders. 
He seems to be in control and with the plan all the time. One of the hardest working players and a quick learner. 
A find of IPL now taking test cricket by the storm! 

I know this is too early to say, but this guy is an absolute legend in making.



He has proved his greatness in all three formats.
Not just amount of wickets but at insane average and economy rate.

To do what he has done on his first ever tours to England,Australia,South Africa and West Indies is just mesmerizing for an Indian Cricket fan.

61 test wickets in 12 tests at an average of 20 with 5 five wickets hauls and one hat-trick with one inning still to go. 
Similarly great numbers he has in one day and T20 as well. 
These numbers are right up there with greats in the history.

When Andy Roberts and Curtly Ambrose say they would have loved to have this guy in their team, it's the praise of the highest order for any young fast bowler.



Let's take a walk on memory lane of India's fast bowling history.

My father was a kid when Ramakant Desai first showed the cricket world that an Indian fast bowler can give best batsmen in the world run for their money.

I wasn't even born when legendary Kapil Dev ran on the cricket field.
Although I did watch his clips, it's never the same as witnessing it in real time.

I saw few years of hard working Javagal Srinath towards the end of his career.

For my generation Zaheer Khan was a hero.
He was one bowler who had a long career and we saw him developing from young fast bowler to a veteran medium pacer having bag full of tricks.

There were others too and each of them had different skills. But none of them stayed for a long time or were as consistent. Again I am not downplaying their contributions, they were also important to where Indian fast bowling has come today. A prodigious Irfan Pathan, Swing master Ajit Agarkar, Master of outswingers but short tempered Shreeshant, fine left arm bowler RP Singh 
It's actually incredible to have so many fast bowlers generated in last 2-3 decades after Kapil Dev.

Right now India has 5 quality fast bowlers in first squad: 
A disciplined and veteran Ishant Sharma 2.0, Shami, Yadav, Bhuvi and Jasprit Bumrah. Not just that, there are 3-4 more bowlers knocking on the door: Saini, Khaleel, Chahar. A very delightful picture for Indian cricket fans.

This is a complete 360-degree transformation from the days when India used to play 4 spinners and lone fast(?) bowler. I have heard stories about likes of Vinoo Mankad, Bishan Bedi, Chandra, Prasanna and myself have watched Anil Kumble and Bhajji for a long time and today also we have Ashwin, Jadeja, Kuldeep and Chahal. Point is now we have a balanced attack with lot of depth.

The thing is after reading about and watching all of the above mentioned and some unmentioned medium-fast bowlers, I feel Bumrah is best of them and if he remains fit he's going to be one the greatest fast bowlers the cricket has ever seen.

It's too early to take his name along with an all time great, but he could actually be the heir to Dale Steyn.

But that's for the future.

For now, let's just enjoy his bowling and witness a golden period for India's fast bowling.

-Onkar Karandikar