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Former South Africa pacer Dale Steyn has backed MI superstar Jasprit Bumrah to win the Purple Cap in IPL 2027 after the Indian pacer had a horrible time at the IPL in 2026.
Bumrah's inability to be incisive throughout the tournament, coupled with the poor form of key batters, meant that the Mumbai Indians finished ninth on the points table in IPL 2026, avoiding the wooden spoon only on net run rate.
Bumrah's poor season and his inability to take wickets came as a shock to fans and experts alike. Without his precision, MI's other bowlers could not pick up the slack either, and that resulted in the third time that MI did not make the playoffs in the last five years.
"He'll come back strong" - Dale Steyn
Steyn was speaking on the YouTube channel of his good friend and former teammate AB de Villiers. He said that a bowler of Jasprit Bumrah's calibre would not find it hard to bounce back from this setback.
Steyn used the example of Bumrah's excellent performance in the T20 World Cup right before the IPL to assert his point.
“He won a World Cup just a month and a half, two months ago, you know, and he was probably one of the bowlers of the tournament, you know. So no, you can't focus on him primarily. He had a bad tournament. There have been good batters at this IPL that haven't hit the ground running. Okay. So it shows that he's human. He'll come back strong and next season he'll probably win the Purple Cap next season, you know," Steyn said.
Jasprit Bumrah has never won the Purple Cap before in his IPL career. His best finish on that table came in 2020 when he was second behind Kagiso Rabada.
"He's the best bowler in the world" - AB de Villiers
In the same discussion, AB de Villiers, too, went on to hail Jasprit Bumrah as one of the best bowlers in the world. He said that Bumrah would definitely come back stronger from whatever had 'plagued' him this year.
“Bumrah's worst IPL of his life. I think his average is over 100 this year. I mean, there are lots of reasons for that, and I still think he's the greatest bowler right now in all formats around the world. So that hasn't changed. One bad performance doesn't take the class out of a player. He'll be back. There's no doubt about it," de Villiers said.
Jasprit Bumrah in IPL 2026
In IPL 2026, Jasprit Bumrah put up the most un-Bumrah-esque performance of his life. Having been rested from MI's last match, Bumrah finished with one of the worst tournaments by a T20 bowler statistically.
This season, he took just 4 wickets in 13 matches at a bowling average of 102.50, but a tight economy rate of 8.36. Bumrah did not take more than one wicket at a time in any of the matches.
Bumrah's bowling average of 102.50 in IPL 2026 is the worst by any bowler in a single T20 tournament with a minimum of 40 overs bowled.
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