Team India bowler Ravichandran Ashwin and fielding coach R Sridhar talked about the heated moment between two great bowlers- James Anderson and Jasprit Bumrah- in the Lord’s Test that India won by 151 runs.
After a span of seven years, India clinched a victory at Lord’s after their bowlers displayed complete dominance on the final day of the second Test. First, Mohammed Shami (56*) and Bumrah (34*) built an unbeaten partnership of 89 runs to push India’s lead to 271 and later the bowlers toppled the England batsman in the early overs of their innings.
Joe Root top-scored with 33, but once he was dismissed by Bumrah, England’s batting collapsed as they were skittled down for 120 with Mohammed Siraj picking four wickets in each innings.
But more than India’s win, the focus of the match was the tussle between the players from both sides which started with Bumrah’s nasty deliveries against England’s ace bowler Anderson. On Day 3, Anderson was welcomed with a barrage of short balls as India wanted to bowl out England, who was leading on skipper Joe Root’s fireworks.
In the middle of the game, words of exchange occurred between Anderson and Bumrah, according to Ashwin, the England player wasn’t happy with the speed he was being bowled.
“The thing was, Jimmy (James Anderson) was like, “Hey mate! Why are you bowling so fast? Am I doing the same to you?” Ashwin said on his YouTube channel in conversation with R Sridhar.
“The beauty about that is, looks like Jimmy had told Boom, (Bumrah) “All these while, you were bowling in the 80MPHs, suddenly on seeing me, why are you bowling in the 90MPHs?” Ashwin added.
Soon after the end of the third day’s play when the players were going back to their respective dugouts, Bumrah attempted to talk to Anderson but it didn’t work out as the latter brushed aside his counterpart with anger boiling in his mind. R Sridhar explained that Bumrah wanted to tell that his acts were not intended anyway.
“So after the innings, the boys were walking back to the dressing room. Then, Bumrah walked past Jimmy and just patted at him, so as to tell him that it wasn’t intentional. We all know Bumrah, he is such a nice guy. So he had gone to talk to him and end the matter, but Jimmy brushed him aside,” Sridhar said.
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“Brushing him aside, he told him, “You bowl only 85MPH to the other batters, you are bowling 90 MPH to me. This is cheating, I won’t accept,” Sridhar added.
India takes a 1-0 lead in the five-match Test series with the third Test to be played at Headingley, Leeds starting on August 25.