Jasprit Bumrah embodies a better kind of Indian cricketer – and a better India

ON THE AFTERNOON of 3 February, in Visakhapatnam, on the third day of the second match of a Test series between India and England, Jasprit Bumrah steamed in to bowl. The visitors stood at 114 for 2, chasing the Indian first-innings total of 396. England were scoring at a fast clip, in keeping with their creed of Bazball, a hyper-aggressive mode of playing Test cricket conjured up by their coach, Brendon McCullum.

As Bumrah sought a breakthrough, the significance of the recent past dwarfed the present. The previous week, during the series’ first Test in Hyderabad, England had produced a dramatic win from behind, adding to the mythology surrounding Bazball. The philosophy, faced with its sternest Test yet in formidable Indian conditions, had improbably succeeded at the first instance.