'He has to be extra aggressive to pick wickets' - Zaheer Khan on Jasprit Bumrah’s barren run

Jasprit Bumrah went wicketless in the three ODIs against New Zealand recently, for the first time in his amazing career. Though batting was blamed for the whitewash Team India suffered after a period of 31 years, bowling should be sharing the blame as well given that they couldn’t defend totals of 347 and 290-odd.

Bumrah was evidently rusty given that he was coming off a long layoff due to rehabilitation for the stress fracture in his back. He spent time away from the game to build his strength back, but the Indian team management decided to put too much pressure on him during the New Zealand white-ball series. Mohammed Shami was rested for two of the ODI matches, leaving Bumrah to work with Saini and Shardul and the inexperience showed.

Jasprit Bumrah gets advice from Zaheer Khan

Zaheer Khan, the former India bowler, has revealed what Bumrah has to do in order to pick wickets again. He mentioned that batsmen were ready to respect him and play out his overs, rather than giving him wickets.

“When you build a reputation like how Jasprit Bumrah has built now over the years, you will have to fight this. Bumrah is in a phase where teams are saying ‘even if we get thirty-five runs we are happy with that as long as we are not giving him wickets because then we can attack the other bowlers,” Zaheer was quoted as saying on Cricbuzz.com.

He further wanted Bumrah to learn new tricks sooner than later after going for a total of 167 runs in the 30 overs he bowled. He also lost his no.1 spot in ICC ODI bowlers’ rankings to Trent Boult.

“That is something which Bumrah will have to understand that he has to be extra aggressive in terms of looking to get those wickets because he knows the batsmen are going to be defensive,” Zaheer added.

Zaheer wants Bumrah to make the batsmen play and get them out, rather than being content with letting them play him out for a few runs. Bumrah is now slated to feature in the two-match Test series which begins on February 21 in Wellington.

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