How 'BoomBall' became synonymous with swing and seam bowling at Oval?

We were barely 8 overs into the game and India’s Spearhead pacer had scalped 4 massive wickets of English batsmen, the same batsmen who annihilated the Indian bowling attack just over a week ago in the one-off test match. Jasprit Jasbirsingh Bumrah was the man and he shattered the hopes of English fans within the powerplay. Social media started buzzing and an uproarious term was coined, the ‘BoomBall’ Effect, a supposed contrary to the ‘BazBall’ Effect which is being used by the England team in the test circuit.

Bumrah and the other Indian pacers used the pitch and the conditions to perfection. The pitch contained a decent amount of grass which assisted with pacers and provided extra bounce and seam of the surface. This was backed with the overcast condition which helped them with a good amount of movement in the air. All the Indian bowlers had to do was to bowl at the perfect line and length to reap the reward and Bumrah provided the perfect opening for the other bowlers to join in. It was a perfect retaliation by the Indians contrary to what had happened a week ago.

What was the major reason for Bumrah’s success against the strong English batting lineup? Let us dive into the analysis.

Let us first look at the line and length split up and exactly understand where 
he landed his deliveries.


So here we can notice that 37 percent of his deliveries were landed on the good length region, outside the off-stump which is usually a tight line to play. He might have not got a wicket in that area but he kept the batsmen alert. We can also notice that 19 percent of his deliveries were around the off-stump line at a good length which forced the batsman to play a shot and he ended up getting a wicket at this region. Another interesting point to note here is that 2 out of his 3 yorker-length deliveries fetched him wickets which proves his lethal nature while delivering the yorker.

He bowled close to 74 percent of his deliveries between the off-stump and 5th stump channel which is a proper definition of a classic test match and disciplined bowling. 

He also bowled close to 53 percent of his deliveries between the off-stump and leg-stump channel and did not give enough room for the batsman to play their shots.

Now to further understand his success, let us have a look at the variations that he possessed throughout his spell.

Due to the presence of a green tinge across the surface of the pitch, the pacers were able to get a lot of seam early up and the overcast conditions along with the pitch condition helped the ball to move viciously in the air. 

In the above chart, we can notice that 43 percent of his deliveries were inswingers and just about 4 percent of them were outswingers. Sixty percent of these inswingers landed on the good length zone which makes it much more difficult for the batsman to get proper control of the shot.

He was also able to get the ball to seam off the surface where close to 35 percent of the deliveries seamed into the batsman and 12 percent seamed away from the batsman after pitching.

Less than 7 percent of Bumrah's deliveries were slower deliveries which tells us that he relied less on the pace variations and stuck to his disciplined line and length bowling 

One of the best moments of his spell was the manner in which he set up Livingstone's dismissal. He bowled 2 good-length deliveries which were swinging back into the batsman and the next delivery which swung away from the batsman after pitching at a good length. Livingstone, who was eager to get off the mark was expecting another good length delivery away from the batsman so he exposed his stumps and advanced down the crease. But Bumrah sneaked in a wonderful inswinging toe crusher which clipped the leg stumps.

A very interesting bit of analysis is that Bumrah had induced a false shot percentage of exactly 50 out of which 44 percent were against batsmen and all rounders. Another very interesting feature to note here is that 25 percent of his deliveries today are deliveries where the batsman were beaten after attempting a shot. 

We have perhaps witnessed the re-emergence of Bumrah as the best limited overs bowler in the world and it will be interesting to see if England will be able to find a way to counter his lethal yet skillful bowling in the forthcoming matches. But for now, say hello to the new world number one ODI ranked bowler!