Training had started forty minutes late for the India team, at 6.40pm, ahead of their T20I against Afghanistan on Sunday. A steady drizzle had eased the dry Delhi heat, and it was on the wet turf that Bumrah collected this ball.
He did not rush into the throw – he took a moment longer to aim, straightening his aiming arm like a rod. Then, he took out all three stumps.
Bumrah’s patience on return to India training was evident, even once he moved to the fast-bowling nets. He bowled alongside Arshdeep Singh, Yash Thakur and Nitish Kumar Reddy. He held his grip up towards the floodlights, testing it out; he joked with his team-mates, and early on, he brought out the measuring tape.
He needed it because for most of his hour-long spell at the nets, he bowled with a remarkably long run-up. At times, even a third longer than we are used to seeing from him. Three markers were set up in front of the stumps: a black bottle stood the farthest, the spot where he began from; a red bottle was closest to the stumps. And in between was an India cap, where he broke into his jog time and again.
Maybe the markers were incidental to his run-up. But it is worth staying with Bumrah’s action at the crease for a moment more. It has been finessed over the past decade to perfection: he jogs in, then lands with a braced front knee, both his hands ramrod straight and his hyperextended right hand flings the delivery forward.
His run-up, on the other hand, went through multiple iterations on Friday evening. He shortened it, then lengthened it, again and again. At times, he was bowling even further behind Arshdeep Singh’s run-up.
There could be a reason behind Bumrah’s experiments. He has had a strange year. He bowled India to a dominant home T20 World Cup win at the start of March. Then, he took just four wickets at the IPL at an average of 102.50, operating below his best on both pace and accuracy. Soon after, a left knee injury recurred. He missed an ODI in England, then two Tests in Sri Lanka. He was declared fit after his rehab at the Centre of Excellence in Bengaluru, just a day before he bowled in the nets in Delhi.
Bumrah’s revised run-up after emerging from the CoE, in its longest iteration, consisted of ten steps of walking in, then breaking into 16 quick-burst steps, before he jumped into his trademark action. Measuring run-ups this way is not an exact science, but the effects of this extension were visible from the onset.
He used this extended run-up early on to pitch a full one, outside off, to Vaibhav Sooryavanshi. Sooryavanshi was tempted into a drive but the ball angled away and caught a thick outside edge. Bumrah held his hands up and launched into a pantomime celebration.
He troubled Samson near his stumps, yorked Shivam Dube with some glee, and near the end of the evening, against Ishan Kishan – in fantastic ball-striking form all evening – Bumrah kept him quiet by angling deliveries straight at the stumps, then jagging them away.
When Bumrah was opting for his long run-up, though, he visibly fell out of his usual rhythm at times, slowing down when he was supposed to speed up or aborting his run-up midway through his action. So against Kishan, the most in-form batter of the day, he had shortened his action to its more conventional form.
After this spell of play, Bumrah took in the cloudy Delhi skies, then broke into a smile and some banter. He called Navdeep Saini, a net bowler for this session, to take over his spot.
If fit enough, Bumrah will be playing three T20Is in the space of five days. His job this evening was done. Whether or not Bumrah adopts this new run-up straightaway into international cricket remains to be seen – perhaps it was just a training drill – but he has, after all, given himself time. The journey just took a few more steps than before.
Abhijato Sensarma is a sub-editor at Cricinfo
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