“Leave him alone. He knows what to do,” Ishant Sharma recalls interesting tale related to Jasprit Bumrah involving Virat Kohli

During a Test match Down Under in 2018, a young Bumrah was struggling to deliver his best in his first spell, after which, Kohli wanted to talk with him.

“Leave him alone. He knows what to do,” Ishant Sharma recalls interesting tale related to Jasprit Bumrah involving Virat Kohli

Jasprit Bumrah and Virat Kohli

Jasprit Bumrah is an indispensable part of the Indian setup across all the formats. When he started for India in Tests in 2018, he shrugged off the ‘white ball’ specialist tag to emerge as India’s leading wicket-taker. But it wasn’t a smooth journey for him.

Before him, veteran pacer Ishant Sharma used to do marvels with the red ball. He is no longer a feature in the whites, but this pacer with 105 Test caps, narrated a never-heard tale related to Bumrah’s early years involving former India captain Virat Kohli.

During a Test match Down Under in 2018, a young Bumrah was struggling to deliver his best in his first spell, after which, Kohli wanted to talk with him. But Ishant, who believed in Bumrah’s ability to become one of the best, stopped Kohli from doing so.

“I knew a day would come when Bumrah would become a leader,” Ishant told Cricbuzz on the first episode of ‘Rise of New India’. “I remember in 2018 when we were playing a Test match in Australia and his first spell did not go well. Virat told me ‘I think I should go and speak to him, I said ‘He is a very smart bowler. He understands it. Usko chhor de. Usko pata hain kya karna hain, kya nahi karna (Leave him alone. He knows what to do). In that way, he is very smart. He understands the situation,” he added.

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In 2018, Jasprit Bumrah became leading wicket-taker for India in Tests

Jasprit Bumrah
In 2018, Jasprit Bumrah became leading wicket-taker for India in Tests

With a fifer, Bumrah ended up scalping 21 wickets, helping India to win that 2018-19 series. He made his Test debut earlier that year against South Africa and would later become India’s leading wicket-taker with 48 scalps off just nine matches, including three fifers. He has played 30 Tests so far, and bagged 128 wickets at 21.99, including eight five-wickets hauls.

Coming back to the present, Bumrah may and may not be able to provide his services to Rohit Sharma and Co. for the upcoming red-ball series due to his stress fracture, which he sustained last year. Although he has recovered and was previously named in the ODI series against Sri Lanka last month, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) did not rush him after the 29-year-old complained of stiffness. BCCI did not put his name for the first two Tests for the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, starting February 9 in Nagpur.

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