Indian speedster Jasprit Bumrah had a heated moment with James Anderson during the fag end of the 2nd day’s play of the Lord’s Test after Bumrah started bowling a barrage of short deliveries directed at Anderson.
Being a No 11 batsman, Anderson was at sea and could hardly tackle the short barrage of Bumrah. The speedster had also bowled four no-balls during the at course of the particular over. He bowled four short deliveries, followed by a yorker and then again returned to the short stuff.
Anderson was eventually dismissed on the final delivery of the day by Mohammed Shami. Anderson was not happy with Bumrah’s short stuff and looked cringy while walking off the field. In a recent episode on Ravichandran Ashwin’s youtube channel, the spinner divulged what really happened during the whole incident during an interaction with Indian fielding coach R Sridhar.
“The beauty about that is, looks like Jimmy had told Boom, “all these while, you were bowling in the 80 mphs, suddenly on seeing me, why are you bowling at 90 mph? “
“So, after the innings, the boys were walking back to the dressing room. Then Bumrah walked past Jimmy and just patted at him. So as to tell him that it wasn’t intentional.”
We all know Bumrah. He is such a nice guy. So he had gone to talk to him and end the matter, but Jimmy brushed him aside. Brushing him aside, he has told him “You bowl only 85 mph to the other batters, you are bowling 90 mph to me. This is cheating. I won’t accept,” Ashwin said.
When Bumrah came out to bat in the second innings with England well on top, the English players went with the emotion and instead of attacking the stumps and trying to take Bumrah’s wicket, they kept bowling short which actually played into the hands of Indian tail-enders.
After surviving a couple of hits on the helmet, Bumrah didn’t back away and took on the challenge and went onto score an unbeaten 34 and shared an unbeaten 89 runs stand with Mohammed Shami which ensured India went into the final two sessions with a realistic chance of winning.
Eventually, it was an incredible bowling performance from the pace cartel which handed India a famous 151 runs victory to take a 1-0 lead in the five-match series with three matches still to go. Bumrah and Shami charged into the field with the ball and sent back the openers in seven deliveries to set up the win for the visiting team.