Jasprit Bumrah makes Historic debut as Captain in T20, wins Player of the match

Star Indian pacer Jasprit Bumrah, currently captaining the Indian team for a 3-match T20I series away at Ireland, made his much awaited comeback last night. Bumrah led Men in Blue won the first match at the Village by 2 runs in Duckworth lewis method.

After losing the toss, Ireland batted first and failed to get off to a strong start. Opening batter Andrew Balbirnie did score a boundary off the first ball but he went to the dressing in the very next ball by none other than returning Jasprit Bumrah.

Welcome Back Boom Boom Bumrah 🐐#IREvIND #INDvsIREpic.twitter.com/0bDRDrBX74

— RVCJ Media (@RVCJ_FB) August 18, 2023

The 29-year-old bowled an unplayable in swinger and knocked the stumps over. Then in the 4th delivery, no.3 batter Lorcan Tucker, while trying to play an over-ambitious sweep shot, ended up just airing the ball to fall on Sanju Samson’s gloves.

Later on the Irish batters kept handing wickets to Indian bowlers and were 59/6 at one point before Curtis Campher and Barry McCarthy steadied the ship. Both of them played short cameos to helped Ireland leave away a target of 140.

In response, India scored 47 runs in 6.5 overs through Yashasvi Jaiswal and Ruturaj Gaikwad’s fiery start before rain cancelled the play. Team India, thanks to the duckworth lewis method, walked away with a 2-run win.

That's some comeback! 👏 👏

Jasprit Bumrah led from the front and bagged the Player of the Match award as #TeamIndia win the first #IREvIND T20I by 2 runs via DLS. 👍 👍

Scorecard – https://t.co/cv6nsnJY3m | @Jaspritbumrah93 pic.twitter.com/2Y7H6XSCqN

— BCCI (@BCCI) August 18, 2023

Indian captain Jasprit Bumrah received the man of the match award for his spell of 2-24 and became the first player to win the MOTM award in captaincy debut. No other Indian captain on debut has been able to do so yet.

Jasprit Bumrah became India’s 11th different captain in T20Is and the 10 others including: Virender Sehwag, MS Dhoni, Suresh Raina, Ajinkya Rahane, Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, Shikhar Dhawan, Rishabh Pant, Hardik Pandya and KL Rahul.

Jasprit Bumrah becomes India’s 4th highest wicket-taker in T20Is

Moreover, Bumrah with his brace of wickets, became India’s joint 4th-highest wicket taker (72 wickets) in the shortest format. He overtook Ravichandran Ashwin, who reached the land mark in his 65th T20I while Jasprit Bumrah did so in his 61st T20 appearance last night.