Jasprit Bumrah had gone into Wednesday night’s game against SRH with a matchup record heavily in his favour against Abhishek Sharma — two dismissals in five innings, 17 runs, strike rate barely 75. None of that mattered. Abhishek read his slower ball early in the second over and deposited it over mid-on. Travis Head followed with a 99-metre six straight back over Bumrah’s head. By the end of the powerplay, Bumrah had conceded 32 runs across two overs — the most he has ever given away in a powerplay in the IPL.
It didn’t get better. Klaasen drove him over extra cover for six when the equation was 68 off 42. Nitish whipped another slower ball over square leg. Then the moment that emptied the stands — uncapped Salil Arora, barely breaking his stance, launching a no-look six over long-off off a missed yorker. Bumrah finished with none for 54, his third most expensive spell in IPL history, five sixes conceded, and not a single sequence of three dot balls across nearly four overs. On a night every bowler bled, even he wasn’t spared.
Wednesday night was the sharpest point of a difficult season. Across eight matches this IPL, Bumrah has taken two wickets at an average of 132 and an economy of 8.80 — against a career economy of 7.33 and average of 23.21. His average speed is down to 132.1 kph.
As far back as April 12, Ravichandran Ashwin had flagged something worth watching. The lack-of-wickets narrative for Bumrah, Ashwin wrote on X, was misleading and could hurt MI’s cause. “Him nailing yorkers and choking the opposition for every single run is even more important than him looking to get wickets, especially at venues like the Wankhede,” Ashwin said. He added that bowling in partnerships as a defensive unit remained an undervalued idea in T20 cricket.
Four days later, Irfan Pathan went further with numbers. Bumrah was using the slower ball roughly 44 per cent of the time — almost every second delivery. “There is no major issue with his form, but his average speed this season has been around 130 kph. If he bowls more fast deliveries and reduces the percentage of slower balls, the results will come,” Pathan said on his YouTube channel. “It is a very simple solution. Bumrah does not need coaching, but the numbers are showing what is happening.”
After Wednesday’s game, Kieron Pollard was direct. “When a cricketer is not doing well, we look at every single aspect as to why he’s not doing well. And there’s no difference to Jasprit Bumrah. He has done this for years. And as a human being, he is entitled as well to make mistakes, not have a good day, not have a good season, not have a good couple of months. And I just feel that we need to sometimes sort of remember the good things that he has done. Yes, we try to live in the present, and he hasn’t been up to mark, but he’s still been a number one bowler for Mumbai Indians and India over a period of time.”
