Like Zaheer Khan in 2007, Jasprit Bumrah used his anger to hurt England at Lord’s

The last time India won a test series in England was in 2007, and it was Zahir Khan who led the race with 20 wickets in three tests.

And it was the jelly bean incident during the second Test at Nottingham that spurred the left-arm pacer to take five wickets in the second innings and set up a superb win.

When Zaheer was batting during India’s first innings, Kevin Pietersen fielding at slip, threw jelly beans at him, which fired up the left-arm pacer. There was a heated altercation between Zaheer and Pietersen and England felt the heat when they batted as the Indian pacer returned with figures of 5/75. Something on those lines happened during the Lord’s Test as well when Jasprit Bumrah was peppered with bouncers by the English pacers and the pacer retaliated in style, both with the bat and ball to set up a famous win.

Zaheer was very happy to see Bumrah channelise his anger the way he did and wreak havoc. “If by getting angry, he can carry himself and perform like this, I believe he should at times needle the opposition. See, in the first innings, he had gone wicketless and being the class bowler that he is, I am sure it must have bothered him,” Zaheer was quoted as saying by Cricbuzz.

The precursor to the incident was Bumrah bowling a few bouncers to James Anderson when he batted and it didn’t go down too well with the English legend.”

After that, the whole Anderson episode that unfolded, the bouncers he bowled to him and then while batting, the manner in which the England pacer went after him, all those things motivated him, and he channelised that anger in the right way. England must be thinking ‘we should have let Bumrah bowl bouncers’ and not mess with him. The intensity with which he bowled, was worth praising,” Zaheer added.

When England batted, Ollie Robinson and Jos Buttler had put up some stern resistance for the eighth-wicket partnership and they were less than 10 overs away from pulling off a draw. But Bumrah, coming in from the round the wicket, bowled a superb slower ball that caught Robinson in front of the stumps. It was a delivery of rare quality that turned the match decisively in India’s favour and Zaheer was effusive in his praise of what the Gujarat pacer pulled off.

“Bowling a slower ball is challenging, but to bowl it from round the wicket, from that angle to get a batsman out LBW, you need to bowl from close to the wicket, which is never easy. Bumrah did a very tough job. The thought process was excellent. When you’re coming round the wicket, even the batsman is thinking ‘they might use the bouncer more’. To bring out that kind of variation and to have that thinking to get that wicket, was fabulous,” Zaheer added.