'Held back when team needed more': Former India pacer questions Jasprit Bumrah's impact in drawn England series
NEW DELHI: India's hard-fought 2-2 series draw against England in the Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy produced numerous standout performances, but not everyone lived up to the billing.
Former India all-rounder
Irfan Pathan
expressed disappointment in
Jasprit Bumrah
's performance, despite the pacer finishing as one of the top wicket-takers in the series.
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Bumrah featured in only three of the five Tests due to workload management. While he returned with 14 wickets at an average of 26.00 — including two five-wicket hauls — Pathan felt Bumrah lacked the killer instinct in crucial moments.
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'Bumrah will get six out of ten,' Pathan said on his YouTube channel. 'When you're a senior player, there is a lot of responsibility to win matches. He played three Tests, and India didn't win any of them.'
Citing specific examples, Pathan pointed to the series opener where Bumrah took five wickets in the first innings but failed to pick up a single in the second while defending a sizeable total of 370.
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'At that crucial time, your main match-winner has to find a way — over the wicket, around the wicket, yorkers, slower balls, bouncers — anything to create pressure.
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That didn't happen. In the Leeds Test, we did not see that pressure being built. England ended up scoring heavily, and Bumrah did not take a single wicket,' he added.
The former pacer also noted Bumrah's reluctance to stretch spells when India needed breakthroughs. 'There were moments, like when a sixth over was needed.
Joe Root
had been dismissed by him 11 times, and in that Lord's Test, Bumrah bowled just five overs. That one more over could've pushed harder.
I felt he held back.'
While acknowledging Bumrah's name going up on the Lord's honours board, Pathan stressed that the world's top-ranked Test bowler is held to a higher standard.
'He took a five-wicket haul and got his name on the Lord's honours board. But when you are the number one bowler, there is an expectation of number one-level performance, and I felt he did not quite live up to that.'
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