Jasprit Bumrah - fire, fury and evolution

What connects Virat Kohli, Steve Smith, David Warner and AB de Villiers? Bumrah's debuts.

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Jasprit Bumrah is 32 today.

He has taken 234 wickets in 52 Tests, and remains the only bowler with 200 or more wickets at an average below 20. It’s 19.79 if you’re keeping track. (And what are you doing, following cricket, if you aren’t?) He can get the ball to zip off a length on any pitch, to any batter. It’s something that should evoke awe because pitches and batters change what a good length is. And getting the ball to spit venomously from wherever that spot may be, is a gift that’s rarer than a Gautam Gambhir XI without allrounders.

The Bumrah of today is not the bowler who first grabbed international attention as a 19-year-old in IPL 2013. He’s different from the 22-year-old who made an unexpected ODI debut and an expected T20I debut in Australia. He’s a more complete version of the 24-year-old who donned the Test whites in South Africa.

There are some twists of fate that can almost make believers out of atheists. One such, is that I was at each of those…