Why Bumrah Is Being Hounded

The matter of Bumrah's availability for the series should have been a highly-guarded secret.
That it was bandied about all through suggests the matter was deliberately placed in the public domain.
This has become the basis of the hounding of Bumrah, by some former players and fans, asserts Rohit Mahajan.

Jasprit Bumrah is a great cricketer, perhaps the greatest fast bowler from India, but he's no saint.

Fast bowling is the most thrilling skill in sport, but at the end of the day, it involves just hurling a leather orb down the wicket with great skill and speed -- this does not make a bowler a great man.

Bumrah possesses a deadly yorker, and he moves the ball in the air and off the pitch with admirable cleverness -- but he must not be anointed a saint.

That said, Bumrah is no villain either. He is just a very talented, hardworking sportsperson who has reached the very top of the world, and he has found that it's not such a pleasant place as was made out to him -- and he's not the first successful man to discover this fact.

Sport often makes most of us giddy, but we must not remain so forever.

Indian cricketers, fans and media were treated to rare thrills by Mohammed Siraj on the morning of June 4, when India won the fifth Test match against England at The Oval in London to draw the series 2-2.

Many fans and media and cricketers, giddy and in frenzied bliss, played a zero sum game between Siraj and Bumrah -- it had got to be one or the other for them.

Siraj won India the series, Bumrah's wickets didn't matter because they came in one draw and two defeats; Siraj the hero for being the top wicket-taker in the series, for bowling 186 overs in the five Tests, Bumrah the villain for opting to play in only three of the five Tests.

Siraj the flag-waving national hero, Bumrah the duty-dodger.

One point of criticism was that since he bowled in only one innings in the fourth Test -- 33 overs in England's 669/10 -- and got to rest for nearly five days, he should have played in the final Test at The Oval, which India needed to win to draw the series 2-2. There's some sense in that.

However, the metrics of fast bowling in Test cricket are not comparable to regular jobs, in which working at even 50% can often be enough. It's a high-impact, high-wear trade that makes the body age. It ends careers.

In Bumrah's case, with his unorthodox action and history of stress injuries, preservation is not indulgence, it is survival.

Yet, the optics were mishandled by those in charge. Before the series began, it was made public that Bumrah would play only three Tests; handing the opposition this information about your most potent weapon was, to put in mildly, hare-brained; two, it would have made better sense for the medical team and Bumrah to assess his fitness and workload match by match and then decide how many and which games he was going to play.

This could have been done with subtlety and wisdom. In fact, when Chief Selector Ajit Agarkar announced the team in May, he suggested this very course of action.

Who decided to announce to the Indian fans -- and, worse still, to the England management -- that Bumrah would play in only three Tests? There is speculation that this news was made public because the team management wasn't happy with Bumrah's request/wish that he be played in only three of the five Tests.

In late May, Agarkar said that Bumrah would not play all five Tests. 'I don't think he (Bumrah) will be available for all five Tests, the physios and the doctors have told us,' Agarkar had said. He had hopes that Bumrah could play four Tests, and said the decision would be based on 'how the series goes and how his body can take the workload'.

However, before the series began, it was revealed that Bumrah would play in three Tests only. Then, after the loss in the first Test at Leeds, Coach Gautam Gambhir was asked if Bumrah could play in more than three Tests. 'No, there is no compromise on the workload of a player,' Gambhir said.

The decision, then, to play him in only three Tests was taken before the series, not during it on the basis of, as Agarkar had said, 'how his body can take the workload'.

Late on the tour, on the first evening of The Oval Test, Assistant Coach Ryan ten Doeschate pointed out that it was Bumrah who had declared that he would be available for only three Tests.

'...he did say coming into the tour, he was going to be available for three games, and we just felt it was right to honour that call,' said ten Doeschate who did say that Bumrah 'has bowled a large number of overs'.

'I know it doesn't always seem like that because he's only played three Tests and he only bowled in one innings in Manchester,' he added.

The matter of Bumrah's availability for the series should have been a highly-guarded secret. That it was bandied about all through suggests the matter was deliberately placed in the public domain. This has become the basis of the hounding of Bumrah, by some former players and fans. This is unfortunate.

For Bumrah, instead of declaring himself available for only three Tests, it would have made greater sense to analyse his fitness status during the series, match by match. No questions could have been asked about his commitment then.

Bumrah is in the eye of the storm, but the debate is larger -- it's about the collision of interests in modern cricket -- between a player's longevity, a team's short-term needs, and the fans' hunger for constant heroics.

It's also a Franchise vs Country issue -- cricketers pick up or play with injuries in the IPL, but may decide to 'rest' during a Test series.

The most egregious example of this was Sachin Tendulkar playing for his IPL club, Mumbai Indians, but opting not to play for India in the Test series in the West Indies in 2011.

Cricket is more a trade than a sport, and those who attack Bumrah for 'shirking national duty' must understand this. Such views are intemperate and lack nous, uttered by persons who do not know fast bowling or sports injuries or team sport.

They are also roused by a false sense of nationalism, picturing Bumrah as a soldier defending the country at its borders -- sport is war minus the shooting, as George Orwell said.

The fault lies with us, for in our imagination and in notions of nationalism, we turn Bumrah and his ilk into superheroes. But essentially, sportspersons play to excel, to impose their talent over the opposition, to win for self and team, to win fame and money.

They are not super-patriots willing to die for the nation. They are not saints nor are they superheroes. They are just fantastic athletes who fulfil a people's desire to be respected by the world for their strength, athleticism and skills.