"He thought the ball would..." - Jasprit Bumrah on Ben Stokes' viral reaction after getting bamboozled

India National Cricket Team pacer Jasprit Bumrah opened up on the puzzled reaction of the England National Cricket Team captain Ben Stokes after the latter’s dismissal in the second Test match of the five-match series at the Dr. Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy ACA-VDCA Cricket Stadium, Visakhapatnam on Saturday, February 3.

Jasprit Bumrah was the chief architect behind India’s dominance with the ball against England in the Vizag Test. The right-arm pacer led from the front and got breakthroughs for his side at crucial stages in the game.

Jasprit Bumrah didn’t start quite well in the innings as the bazballers – Ben Duckett and Zak Crawley – played an attacking brand of cricket. When India found themselves under pressure against England, Jasprit Bumrah came and conquered while showcasing his class.

Bumrah picked up 6 major wickets and finished his spell with sensational figures of 6/45. He produced a magical delivery to castle Ben Stokes, who gave a puzzled reaction after getting dismissed and dropped his bat. Stokes’ reaction went viral on social and it also caught the attention of the many experts.

𝘚𝘵𝘰𝘬𝘦𝘴' 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘴𝘢𝘺𝘴 𝘪𝘵 𝘢𝘭𝘭 😱

1⃣5⃣0⃣ Test wickets for the Wrecker-in-chief! 🤌#Bumrah #INDvENG #BazBowled #IDFCFirstBankTestsSeries #JioCinemaSports pic.twitter.com/cWG7HfKqir

— JioCinema (@JioCinema) February 3, 2024

Bumrah was asked about the same after the match and he said that the England captain might have thought that the ball would swing but it went straight to rattle his stump.

“I don’t know what Stokes was thinking but I attempted an outswing but the ball went straight so I think maybe he had seen the shine and thought the ball would go away but it came in straight and he got bowled,” said Bumrah after the play on the first day.

“We know he is a dangerous batsman at that moment when he bats with the lower-order as he bats with freedom and takes lot of chances,” said Bumrah.

I learned to bowl reverse swing before the conventional swing – Jasprit Bumrah

The major reason behind Bumrah’s success was his ability to use the reverse swing. The pacer troubled the English batters and the legendary England pacer Stuart Broad also lauded Bumrah was using reverse swing spectacularly. Talking about this, Bumrah said that he learned to bowl reverse swing before the conventional swing.

“In first class cricket, if you want to take wickets in India, you have to learn to bowl reverse swing. Probably, I learned to bowl reverse swing before the conventional swing because you play a lot of cricket on slow wickets,” said Bumrah.

“So you understand what you have to do over here. You have to find a way, what are the areas that you have to hit. So, yeah, in the nets, you practice all of those skills and try and execute (to get wickets).”

Bumrah castled last game’s centurion Ollie Pope with a lethal yorker in the innings and the batter was back in the hut after scoring 23 runs off 55 balls. The pacer spoke about his thought process before bowling that magical delivery to Pope and said:

“At that time, the ball was relatively hard. So yes, there was some reverse swing. In reverse swing, you don’t have to bowl magical deliveries every ball.

“So I had bowled a few away going deliveries and then there was a thought going on in my head that what do I bowl? I should bowl a length delivery coming in or should I go for a yorker? But I had not bowled a yorker till then. I thought okay might as well take a chance with that and it did swing a lot. The execution was good, very happy with that.”

At stumps on Day 2, India National Cricket Team were at 28/0 with Rohit Sharma and Yashasvi Jaiswal in the middle. India have a lead of 171 runs and they will be looking forward to extending it on Day 3.