Former England speedster Stuart Broad reckons that Jasprit Bumrah's story stride pattern is the reason behind his success as a speedster. He also compared the Indian pace spearhead to legendary Australian pacer Glenn McGrath. Bumrah is currently in England preparing for the five-Test match series, which is scheduled to start from June 20.
The upcoming red-ball series will be Bumrah's first international outing since the five-Test match series of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2024-25 in Australia. The 31-year-old pacer was India's highest wicket-taker in Australia with 32 scalps in five matches. He got an injury during the last Test match in Sydney, which forced him to rule out of the ICC Champions Trophy 2025.
"He (Bumrah) jogs in, you will be thinking 'this will be 70 miles an hour' and it hits you at 90 and you don't get a real flow. When I faced Shoaib Akhtar, he sprint in at a hundred miles an hour and delivered at a hundred miles an hour," Broad said in the podcast 'For the Love of Cricket' which also featured England batter Jos Buttler.
"You were ready, but Bumrah is so balanced, in his run-up, it's a short-stride pattern, so he never gets over stride and of balance. I look at Glenn McGrath (who) had the most balanced delivery stride that I watched and Bumrah is the same."
In the upcoming Test series against England, Bumah is not expected to feature in all five Tests, with chairman of selectors Ajit Agarkar and head coach Gautam Gambhir confirming his participation will be managed as part of a workload strategy.
Broad, who picked up 604 wickets in 167 Tests before retiring in 2023, believes that Bumrah will take a lot of wickets if he features in all five Tests.
"He is going to be certainly one to watch and certainly someone that England won't want to play five Tests, because if he does, he's going to pick up a shedload of wickets, isn't he?
"There was that great bit of play in Australia wherein he got in a scrap in the last over with (Sam) Konstas and (Usman) Khawaja was on strike. He nicked Khawaja off, got him out. He was screaming and roaring.
"He has definitely got that; every fast bowler has to have that emotion in him, but there is a real sharpness to his competitive spirit (and) that he has grown up in that (Virat) Kohli (captaincy) era."
India squad for England series
Shubman Gill(C), Rishabh Pant(vc), Yashasvi Jaiswal, KL Rahul, Sai Sudharsan, Abhimanyu Easwaran, Karun Nair, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Ravindra Jadeja, Dhruv Jurel, Washington Sundar, Shardul Thakur, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj, Parishdh Krishna, Akashdeep, Arshdeep Singh, Kuldeep Yadav