India’s premier pace bowler Jasprit Bumrah showed his class yet again when he took a 5-wicket haul against England in the opening Test at Leeds on Sunday. By taking the five-fer, Bumrah also drew level with the legendary Kapil Dev to become the Indian players with the joint-most five wicket hauls in away Tests.
Bumrah has taken 12 fifers, the same as Dev but did it in 34 Test matches as compared to 66 matches by the former India World Cup winning captain. They are followed by Ishant Sharma who has taken 9 fifers in 63 matches, Zaheer Khan who has 8 in 54 matches and Irafan Pathan who has 7 in 15 matches.
Bumrah accounted for the wickets of Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Joe Root, Chris Woakes and Josh Tongue as India bundled out England for 465, still maintaining a lead of 6 runs.
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Resuming on 209-3 in reply to India’s 471 all out, England were dealt an early blow when overnight centurion Ollie Pope perished for 106 while Harry Brook fell in the second session when attempting to bring up his century with a six.
Brook had got his eye in and steadied the ship with some crisp hitting, smashing 11 boundaries as he made India pay for dropped catches by bringing up his 12th test half-century.
He was given a third lifeline when he slashed at a wide ball to Yashasvi Jaiswal at fourth slip but the Indian opener fluffed the chance — his third dropped catch and India’s fifth in the innings.
The Yorkshire-born batter looked set for a big score before his moment of heartbreak came when he attempted to reach three figures with a flourish, lofting Prasidh Krishna over fine leg only to find Shardul Thakur stationed at the boundary rope.
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A dejected Brook threw his head back and put his hand up to his face before he trudged back to the pavilion as the Headingley crowd overcame their disappointment to give him a standing ovation.
Krishna had also dismissed Pope with a shorter delivery when he nicked it to Rishabh Pant behind the stumps, with the batter adding only six runs to his overnight score.
