India’s pace-spearhead Jasprit Bumrah will remain in the focus as India are all set to play the first Test against New Zealand at Wellington on Friday. Bumrah has set a high standard for himself in a very little time at the international cricket that going wicketless in the recent three-match ODI series against New Zealand was a bit of surprise but that certainly didn’t affect his ability.calibre.
Bumrah, the first Asian bowler to pick up a five-wicket haul in South Africa, England, Australia, and West Indies all in his maiden tour to these countries. However, he would try to do a similar thing in New Zealand this time as well. Although he suffered a slump during the three-match ODI series, he did well against New Zealand XI, finishing with the figure of 11-3-18-2.
Hamilton-based former New Zealand pacer, as well as the national chief selector Gavin Larsen, said there is no doubt that Bumrah will be hard to tackle.
“Bumrah is a quality player. He can’t be put down for too long. Just watch out for Test matches, he will bounce back,” said Larsen.
“I was very lucky in the way that I bowled [in an era] which was suited to the conditions we played back through in the 1990s. Playing 100-plus [ODIs] games was cool,” said the former medium-pacer.
He again said: “Sir Richard Hadlee. An absolute champion in both forms of the game. One of the greatest moments of my career was when I joined him in the changing room on one occasion. The ability to execute plans under pressure is all about how good you are. In our time, it was a small area—back of length where we were supposed to put the ball [consistently],” says Larsen.
“If you did that [bowling back of length] now, my kind of bowling would go for a lot of runs. You didn’t have to mix up so much in my time or change pace, have so many variations,” he concluded.
