Of all the things that Jasprit Bumrah can do on the cricket field, captaincy holds a special place in his heart. He’s a magician with the ball, often described by many, including the legendary Sunil Gavaskar as a once-in-a-generation bowler. But even a magician has desires, and captaincy is one of Bumrah’s. He is his “favourite captain”, so much so that he had no qualms in taking his name while answering a rapid-fire question on “the greatest Indian cricket captain ever.”
Rubbing your eyes? Reading it again? Understandable! There is no doubt about Bumrah’s cricketing acumen. None at all. He is perceived as someone who stays one step ahead of the batters and in former India bowling coach Paras Mhambrey’s words, “knows how to bowl the right ball at the right moment.” There are countless proofs of that in all three formats. Ask Shaun Marsh or Ollie Pope or Ollie Robinson or Mohammad Rizwan or Travis Head. The most recent example was his nip-backer to Marco Jansen in the T20 World Cup final.
It was South Africa’s last recognised batting pair. With 21 needed off 15, it was still their game but not when Bumrah is around. He bowled a delivery good enough to get most Test openers out in the 18th over off a T20 World Cup final. Pace, angle, length, bounce – everything was perfect about that ball. There was nothing Jansen could have done. To his credit, he did offer a defensive push, only for the ball to cut him in half and kiss the top of his stumps. The rest, as they say, is history or in other words, the Bumrah story.
But the discussion here is not about Bumrah’s bowling. Words would fall short of describing his mastery, and it would take a really brave man – maybe a tad insane, too – to contest Bumrah’s claims of being the No.1 bowler across formats in world cricket right now. But can the same claims be made about his captaincy?
With a sample size of three international matches, that is hard to say and we are talking about Indian cricket here. Some of the world’s most influential cricket captains have come from this part of the world. Bumrah himself has played under some. He made his debut under MS Dhoni – the only captain to win all three ICC white-ball tournaments. He played under Virat Kohli, who believed Bumrah could be at the forefront of his dream of building the most menacing fast bowling unit in Test cricket. And finally, the world saw his absolute best in Rohit Sharma’s – the most successful Indian Test and T20I captain – tenure as the Indian skipper.
But none of them is Bumrah’s favourite. He is his own favourite. “See, my favourite captain is me because I have captained a few games. Obviously, there are great captains but I would take my name that I am my favourite captain,” he said when asked to pick the greatest Indian captain by The Indian Express.
Bumrah has captained India in all of three matches – a Test against England and two T20Is against Ireland. His captaincy debut was against England in Birmingham in 2022 when captain Rohit was down with Covid. He famously reminded former England opener Mark Butcher that he was not the first fast bowler to captain India in a Test match, it was actually Kapil Dev. Debate all you want but Bumrah made it clear right from the onset that he took captaincy seriously. And he has maintained that ever since.
“Whenever I see Bumrah, I see a leader on the ground,” Mhamnbrey told Hindustan Times. “Sometimes, it’s easy to say a lot of things and not follow through. But he’s a guy who will say it and then show everyone how to do it. People on the team know he’s a guy who does what he says—walks the talk,” he said.
Many believe he could have been the best choice to replace Rohit if his bowling was not so precious for India. How seriously India take Bumrah’s workload management can be gauged from the fact that he was only member of India’s T20 World Cup-winning squad given a complete break from the Sri Lanka tour. Reports say, veterans Rohit and Kohli also wanted the same but new head coach Gautam Gambhir requested their presence to chalk out plans for the ODI team. Bumrah was exempted.
