Alastair Cook has an interesting take on Jasprit Bumrah.
Former England captain Alastair Cook has questioned Jasprit Bumrah’s credentials in match-winning spells in Test cricket. He meant those spells like the one Stuart Broad bowled in the Ashes 2015, where he took eight wickets for 15 runs.
In the Stick To Cricket podcast, Cook discussed Bumrah’s greatness with the likes of Michael Vaughan and David Lloyd, where Vaughan exclaimed that the Indian pacer is the greatest bowler he has ever seen. However, Cook went on to question whether he can bowl those game-breaking spells in red-ball cricket, like those that break the game completely.
“Is Bumrah the best when it comes to match-winning spells in Test cricket? Without a shadow of a doubt, he’s the best all-format bowler around; you can safely say that. But in Tests, has he bowled a spell like an 8 for 15? Or is he not that kind of bowler?”
Eventually, Vaughan went on to add that he has seen Bumrah bowl those kinds of spells in Australia. Essentially, Cook meant that he hadn’t seen the Indian speedster run through batting lineups as Broad once did in Nottingham, or several other pacers have done in the past.
Clearly, Alastair Cook hasn’t followed Jasprit Bumrah’s Test career closely, which led him to make those inconclusive and false assumptions. The pacer has already bowled multiple such spells that broke the game within a space of a few overs and put his team back into the contest.
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Even if he meant taking those quick wickets in one spell, Bumrah has done it multiple times, that too in foreign conditions. Take his hat-trick against West Indies in Jamaica, where he registered 6/27 or his magical spells in Melbourne in 2018 and Visakhapatnam in 2024.
Then, there’s also a 5/7 against West Indies in Antigua in 2019 and a 5/27 against South Africa in Bengaluru last year. There’s nothing Bumrah hasn’t achieved that a certain Stuart Broad, whose spell Cook quoted, or any bowler, for that matter, has done, across conditions and opponents.
Having taken 234 wickets at 19.79 in 99 innings, including 16 five-wicket hauls, Bumrah’s record itself is a fitting response to whatever Cook meant by “match-winning spells”. For the record, Jasprit Bumrah has also claimed 117 wickets at an average of 14.85 in 43 innings in Test wins, and he has been the driving force behind India’s overseas victories in Australia, South Africa, and England in recent years.
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