Mumbai Indians may have had a season to forget, but fast bowler Jasprit Bumrah seemed to be bowling inside his own bubble. MI finished rock bottom in the IPL table with just eight points in 14 matches having won four and lost 10. However, Bumrah was arguably the tournament’s best bowler by some distance.
While he did not win the Purple Cap, Bumrah maintained a scarcely believable economy of 6.48, which is the lowest for any bowler inside the top 20 wicket-takers of the season. Only Sunil Narine finished the season with an economy that less than 7 apart from Bumrah. He took 20 wickets in 13 matches and maintained an average of 16.80.
Australia great Ricky Ponting has said that he expects Bumrah to continue this form in the T20 World Cup which starts on Saturday. “My leading wicket-taker for the tournament will be Jasprit Bumrah,” Ponting told The ICC Review. “I just think an outstanding performer, contributor for a number of years now. He’s just come off an outstanding IPL.”
Ponting was head coach of the Delhi Capitals who were at the receiving end of Bumrah’s brilliance in their first match of the season against MI. MI had set a mammoth target of 235 for DC to chase and while the latter scored 205/8, Bumrah finished with figures of 2/22. His victims included a dangerous Prithvi Shaw who had scored 66 in 40 balls.
“What he can do with the new ball, he swings the new ball, he has the seam up. But at the end, his economy rate at the end of the IPL was less than seven runs an over. He takes wickets. He does bowl a lot of the hard overs too. When you bowl the hard overs in T20 cricket, it gives you a chance to pick up a lot of wickets along the way. So, I’m going with him,” said Ponting.
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