Brendon McCullum issues warning to his England players about Jasprit Bumrah

England head coach Brendon McCullum whose philosophy of Bazball style of cricket has indeed taken over the world but the style is in its first ever t0ur of India, and it has been tested very well by the Indian contingent. Following a victory in the 1st Test by 28 runs, England lost by 106 runs in the 2nd at Vizag, mainly because of the eventual man of the match Jasprit Bumrah who claimed 9 wickets across innings and McCullum has affirmed that the visitors will need to have the plan to counter him.

“Bumrah bowled a fantastic spell of reverse swing. Our guys have so much talent and quality, it’s just a matter of ensuring they feel confident to make decisions and go all in on their strategies. We need to come up with some ways to counter that.” – McCullum said to BBC Sport. 

In the 1st innings of the 2nd Test at the ACA-VDCA stadium, as most of the Indian batters faltered against the trickery of Shoaib Bashir, Rehan Ahmed, and Tom Hartley and mastery of veteran James Anderson, it was a 22-year-old Yashasvi Jaiswal that fought against all odds. His efforts were complimented by vice-captain Jasprit Bumrah through his sensational 16-over spell.

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While Jaiswal amassed a milestone first-ever Test career double hundred (209) to become the 3rd youngest Indian to do so that too in just his 2nd Test match on home soil, Bumrah became the fastest Indian bowler by innings to scalp 150 wickets in the longest format, surpassing the likes of Javagal Srinath and Kapil Dev on the way.

Jasprit Bumrah had figures of 6/45 including 5 maiden overs and he got the important wickets of Ollie Pope, Joe Root, Johnny Bairstow, Ben Stokes, Tom Hartley, and James Anderson to restricting England for 253 in their response to India’s 1st innings total of 396.

Then the match started to get even more exciting from the 3rd innings onwards. After Jaiswal and Rohit Sharma’s early departures for 17 and 13, it was an underfire Shubman Gill who took the onus on his shoulders and scored his first Test century from the number 3 slot which he had overtaken from Cheteshwar Pujara after India’s 2023 WTC final loss.

On the back of Gill’s 104, the Indians were able to post 399 as the target and the Britishers required something of an Ollie Pope kind of batting from the 1st Test to be able to win the match. The visitors started well especially Zak Crawley who is likely to score a century in the 3rd Test because of his exceptional form.

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Crawley was smashing the Indian bowlers all over the field before the tragedy began. Ashwin, Kuldeep, and Axar would clean up the top order when England were at 194 and then it was Jasprit Bumrah who would chip in once again and go away with the wickets of Bairstow, Ben Foakes, and Hartley to round off the 2nd Test with one of his best bowling figures by a match of 9/91.

“It’s Going To Be One Hell Of A Series”, McCullum Opines On England Batters’ Competition With Jasprit Bumrah

McCullum went on to claim that the English batters’ head-to-head competition against Jasprit Bumrah will be one to watch and stated that the first two Tests have been truly enthralling.

“What we have seen is that both teams will give as good as what they get. I’m sure everyone around the world who has supported this series so far has been entertained and enthralled by the contest and 1-1 is probably a fair reflection of where it is at the moment. If the next three Tests are anything like these last two, it’s going to be one hell of a series.” – McCullum concluded.