Unlike other fast bowlers in Australia, Bumrah can target the stumps as well as threaten both the edges with his swing. How does one prepare for it?
Alex Malcolm03-Dec-20243:01
Pujara: Bumrah is a team-man and has the ability to lead the team
Australia have a Jasprit Bumrah problem. They’re not the first team to run into said problem, and they won’t be the last.There is also evidence to suggest that Bumrah isn’t their only problem. Aamer Jamal, Shaheen Shah Afridi, Mir Hamza, Shamar Joseph, Alzarri Joseph, Matt Henry and Ben Sears have all scythed through Australia’s top order in the last seven Test matches with bags of four or more in an innings.But the issue with Bumrah appears to be particularly acute. The only top-eight batter Bumrah failed to dismiss in Perth was Mitchell Marsh. He took five of the first seven wickets in Australia’s first innings and three of the first six in the second.Related
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He did most of his damage with the new ball, but he knocked over Travis Head in the fourth innings on 89 with a ball that was 38.5 overs old. He knocked over right-hand batters from over the wicket and left-hand batters from around. He tattooed red cherries on pads and outside edges alike with both inswingers and outswingers. The only thing he didn’t do was rattle anyone’s stumps, but that was only because four sets of pads got in the way.So how do Australia’s batters solve a problem like Bumrah ahead of Adelaide?
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In 2005, Adam Gilchrist had an Andrew Flintoff problem. Specifically, a Flintoff problem from around the wicket. Flintoff dismissed him six times in all forms in the 2005 tour of England, including four times in the Ashes. His angle in from wide around the wicket and late movement away had Gilchrist consistently following and nicking outside off stump.Ahead of the 2006-07 Ashes, Gilchrist turned to his batting coach Bob Meuleman for a solution. Meuleman, the brain behind the famous squash ball in the glove, came up with another inventive way for Gilchrist to prepare. At Meuleman’s indoor cricket nets in South Perth, he set up a bowling machine on an angle so wide from around the wicket that the machine’s legs were nearly touching the side net. With brand new bowling machine balls, pulled straight from the packaging, he peppered Gilchrist with deliveries angled in and swinging away at high speed.Gilchrist didn’t get out to Flintoff that summer, albeit Flintoff was certainly not the same bowler as he had been in 2005. He didn’t face him in the first Test. He survived 28 Flintoff deliveries of the 79 balls he saw in the second in Adelaide on his way to scoring 64. Flintoff brought himself onto Gilchrist straightaway in the third innings of the third Test after Monty Panesar had dismissed him for a four-ball duck in the first, and Gilchrist went at Flintoff without fear on his way to a stunning 57-ball century.
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In 2024, the bowling machine is a relic of the past for modern-day batters. Despite being a staple in preparation for the likes of Gilchrist and his team-mates, even in the days leading into a Test match, modern batters have shunned it completely citing the repetition and predictability of the machine as detrimental despite the ability to position it for very specific challenges like Gilchrist did.How do you prepare for this kind of action?•Getty ImagesIn trying to solve the Bumrah problem while preparing in the nets, Australia’s batters rely on the coaches throwing with the aid of the side-arm/dog thrower, along with net bowlers.The problem is replicating Bumrah’s release. It’s near-on impossible to do. He is a freak of nature. One of a kind. Much has been made of the stuttered run up and the hyper-extended elbow but none of that actually matters to the guys facing him. What matters only is how the ball comes out of the fingers and how it arrives to them.”I’m best when I look for the cues, when I’m just preparing to watch the ball hard and staying fresh mentally,” Travis Head said on Monday. “I think I’m lucky that I’ve faced him a few times and came across him a fair bit. So I just go back over recent times, and times I’ve faced him.”The problem is there are very few cues from Bumrah. The batters say the uniqueness of his action makes it difficult to differentiate his inswinger and his outswinger. The seam presentation is virtually the same, and he doesn’t fall or lean excessively for his inswinger like other bowlers tend to.Top-order Test batters face high-quality bowlers for a living. Often they have to pick a poison in terms of defending against the most likely dismissal, trying to stack the odds in their favour.In Australia, a batter’s outside edge is the biggest vulnerability. The excessive bounce and seam movement of nearly all of Australia’s pitches now, bar the SCG, and the height of most fast bowlers means that it is very difficult for bowlers to hit the stumps from a good 5-6m length.Australian batters are traditionally very good at leaving on length. Australia’s tall fast bowlers often complain about how hard it is to hit the stumps in Australia. If a batter is leaving well, it forces a quick to push much fuller to hit the stumps, which reduces the ability of the ball to move sideways, and batters can profit with scoring opportunities.Batters might then make a decision to take their guard and eyeline closer to off stump in Australia, in order to make better decisions on what to leave and what to play, and back themselves not to miss anything full or straight given the lbw threat is reduced by the added bounce.They would do the opposite in slower and lower conditions in India. Nicking off in India to the quicks is nowhere near as large a concern as getting pinned lbw. So batters might choose in those conditions to take guard closer to leg stump to take lbw out of play and hope any edge falls short of any small waiting cordon.The problem against Bumrah in Perth was that the threat of lbw and nicking off was equally high given his skiddy nature and his ability to swing the ball both ways at high speed from a close release point. While Australia’s bowlers find it hard to hit the stumps from a 5m length, Bumrah can.
“To me, it’s about how are you scoring runs off Jasprit Bumrah? The art of putting pressure back onto him and knowing where you’re going to score off him, that’s our definition of method.”Australia coach Andrew McDonald
There were five lbws in the Perth Test and Bumrah had four of them. Four players also nicked off. It would have been five had Marnus Labuschagne been held second ball of his first innings at second slip by Virat Kohli.The threat of the nick again no doubt played a part in Labuschagne’s torturous 52-ball 2, where he refused to play a shot, and a part in his second innings dismissal where he tried to leave on length and was pinned lbw.The issue for Australia is how to recalibrate their plans with both threats in play, and how to rehearse them in the nets.Australia’s coaches have been going wide on the crease to replicate Bumrah’s wide release and angle in while attempting to swing it both ways at pace. They did something similar when preparing for West Indies quick Kemar Roach last summer, who also releases the ball from past the perpendicular.The issue with the side-arm device though is the height. The distance between the handle and where the ball is released from is up to 50cm. Coach Andrew McDonald already stands at approximately 6 foot 3 inches. So does bowling coach Daniel Vettori who is a left-armer. Batting coach Michael Di Venuto is a lot closer to Bumrah’s height while fielding coach Andre Borovec is shorter.Jasprit Bumrah trapped Steven Smith lbw first ball in the first innings in Perth•Getty ImagesAustralia had coaching consultants Michael Hussey and Lachlan Stevens, another left-hander, in Perth as well who are Bumrah’s height or shorter. But even then, adding 50cm of stick to the release point means a good length delivery in the nets is unlikely to hit the stumps. The decision-making in terms of footwork and shot selection changes with the trajectory and the bounce.It was a problem past Australian players encountered when preparing for Sri Lankan quick Lasith Malinga, and some tried to get coaches to throw without the side-arm device, instead throwing by hand with a low round-arm release point from in front of the umpire’s chest to replicate the angle.Facing Australia’s bowlers in the nets won’t help either. One international player told ESPNcricinfo that the closest comparison Australia had in terms of Bumrah’s skillset and trajectory was Jhye Richardson. But even Richardson is significantly different to Bumrah and is not with Australia in Adelaide.Ultimately, every player who has ever played knows that what happens in the nets is completely different to the middle, no matter how hard you tried to replicate what you will face.And survival is one thing, scoring is another, as McDonald noted in the aftermath of the Perth loss.”To me, it’s about how are you scoring runs off Jasprit Bumrah,” McDonald said. “It’s one thing sitting there and going, ‘how am I going to defend the good balls?’ But the art of putting pressure back on to him and knowing where you’re going to score off him, that’s our definition of method, how you are going to score your runs against a certain type of bowler.”The boys, they were clear coming in. There’s one thing being clear coming in and then obviously, once you get into the heat of battle, maintaining your mindset around all of that, and that’s going to be our challenge.”