'He's like a slingshot': Why Aussies are wary of Bumrah

Travis Head could be describing a UFO crashing down to Earth.

"It fell out of the sky," he says of the mysterious object that landed 20 metres from him on the MCG from the last ball before lunch on day three of the 2018 Boxing Day Test.

The reaction of Head's batting partner Shaun Marsh after being hit by the unidentified object flush on the Gray-Nicholls logo of his front pad also suggested an extraterrestrial sighting; the veteran was left slumped chest-on to the bowler with both arms hanging down in front of him, his bat a bystander to the mystery.

"It was the best ball I've ever seen," Head adds. "It literally looked like it was going to hit 'Sos' (Marsh) in the head – and then it hit him on the foot. That is the most incredible ball I've ever seen."

Jasprit Bumrah's sorcery has lived on in the Australians' memory even as the idiosyncratic style of the stiff-limbed hurler from Gujarat has since been somewhat demystified, if not yet fully decrypted. 

Back when he lobbed up that remarkable off-spinning dipper to Marsh, Bumrah was still in his first year of Test cricket, having successfully adapted the scattergun bowling style honed in a narrow carpark outside his childhood apartment in Ahmedabad to the IPL and then international limited-overs cricket.

It was said his devastating yorker had been perfected when he was a child practicing bowling to hit the skirting board at the end of the hallway in his family's small flat on the full, muffling the noise of ball on wood so as not to wake his napping mother.

And the Australians discovered during that 2018-19 Test series, in which Bumrah's series-leading 21-wicket haul inspired India's breakthrough series victory, that the right-armer had persistence and variety to match his unorthodoxy.

"He runs in so slow and you think this guy could bowl 120 (kph), but he's bowling 135 and then he has a quick ball that's 150 – and he releases the ball further forward than every other bowler in the world," says Marnus Labuschagne, who first faced Bumrah during the 2019 New Year's Test.

As Bumrah blossomed into one of cricket's most impactful all-format bowlers, it has been his release point that has been identified as the single most significant factor separating him from other leading seamers.

His braced front leg and hyperextension in his elbow allows him to catapult the ball from up to half-a-metre further in front of his body than other international pacemen, reducing the batter's reaction time to what is an already unusual bowling action. 

An analysis by Channel Seven during the 2020-21 series showed Bumrah was releasing the ball from 34cm in front of the bowling crease. Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood were both at less than 10cm, with Pat Cummins the furthest out of the Aussies at 22cm. Other breakdowns have shown Bumrah letting it go from as far as 48cm in front of the crease.

"If you haven't faced him before, it can really unsettle you," says fellow quick Josh Hazlewood. "He lets the ball go way out in front, so he's pretty much half a yard quicker than what the actual speed gun says … He's like a slingshot loading up and letting go."

Bumrah's contributions in the first three of India's four-Test Border-Gavaskar Trophy triumph in 2020-21 solidified his record as one of the most effective bowlers to ever tour Australia.

His average of 21.25 and strike-rate of 51.5 in this country are the best marks of any Indian fast bowler to have taken at least 10 wickets here, all while maintaining an economy rate of 2.47.

That combination of frugality and strike-power puts him in truly elite company. Of all post-war visiting bowlers to Australia, only he, Curtly Ambrose, Richard Hadlee and Gerry Gomez have a bowling average under 25, a strike-rate of less than 55 and an economy-rate under 2.50 (minimum 30 overs).

Many visiting seamers have enjoyed the extra bounce Down Under and created behind-the-wicket catching chances they could not in their home countries. Fewer though have also been able to regularly threaten the stumps.

Of his 32 wickets taken in Australia, 18 have been bowled or lbw. That stands in sharp contrast to Pat Cummins, for whom bowled or lbw makes up only 23 per cent of his 152 Test wickets in Australia. The numbers of Mitchell Starc (32 per cent) and Josh Hazlewood (25 per cent) are also much closer to their compatriot than the Indian.

"I've faced him quite a lot now and each time I feel like it takes a few balls just to get used to him," says Steve Smith. "I think because he's releasing the ball closer to you, it feels a little bit more different (because of his) awkward action."

What Bumrah will have to contend with for the start of this summer's series is the added burden of the captaincy given the expected absence of Rohit Sharma from the first Test in Perth.

It will be just his second Test in charge and comes fresh off India's most crushing series result in recent times, having been swept at home by New Zealand.

"'Jassy' (Bumrah) is a guy that immediately put his hand up and he wanted that leadership role," says India's bowling coach Morne Morkel.

"He's been very successful here in the past. He knows what to expect. In the dressing room he speaks well. He's a guy that I know with ball in hand will lead from the front and then the rest of the younger guys will follow.

"I'm sure when he's bowling, and there's a million things going on in his head, that he'll settle and bring a bit of calmness into the team. In terms of leadership and in terms of how he looks at the game, he's a natural leader for me."

Back in that watershed 2018 Boxing Day Test, the idea for Bumrah to bowl that fizzing slower delivery to Marsh was planted by his Mumbai Indians teammate Rohit.

"The wicket was not doing a lot, the ball had become quite soft," Bumrah told cricket.com.au during that Test.

"Rohit was there at mid-off and he (said), 'It's the last ball before lunch, maybe you could try a slower ball'. He told me, 'You use it quite a lot in white-ball cricket, you could still try it (in a Test)'."

In Perth this week, Rohit will not be there to guide him. But Bumrah has shown enough guile to suggest he has what it takes to handle the heat Down Under.

NRMA Insurance Men's Test Series v India

First Test: November 22-26: Perth Stadium, 1.20pm AEDT

Second Test: December 6-10: Adelaide Oval, 3pm AEDT (D/N)

Third Test: December 14-18: The Gabba, Brisbane, 11.20am AEDT

Fourth Test: December 26-30: MCG, Melbourne, 10.30am AEDT

Fifth Test: January 3-7: SCG, Sydney, 10.30am AEDT

Australia squad: (first Test only) Pat Cummins (c), Scott Boland, Alex Carey (wk), Josh Hazlewood, Travis Head, Josh Inglis, Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Nathan Lyon, Mitch Marsh, Nathan McSweeney, Steve Smith, Mitchell Starc

India squad: Rohit Sharma (c), Jasprit Bumrah (vc), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Abhimanyu Easwaran, Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, KL Rahul, Rishabh Pant, Sarfaraz Khan, Dhruv Jurel, Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Mohammed Siraj, Akash Deep, Prasidh Krishna, Harshit Rana, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Washington Sundar. Reserves: Mukesh Kumar, Navdeep Saini, Khaleel Ahmed