Bumrah, Chandra and the electricity of the unorthodox

In over half a century of obsessing over cricket, dreaming of it, playing it, watching it, writing about it, travelling for it, I have seen only two Indian bowlers who, every time they had the ball in hand, changed the texture of the competition. The stadium quivered in anticipation of a wicket. Sometimes, a rhythmic chant accompanied the run-up, bursting into crescendo at the final leap. Those watching on television sat up, shoulders squared, ready to shine in reflected glory.

The bowlers with that aura are Jasprit Bumrah and Bhagwat Chandrasekhar. Bumrah bowls few rank bad deliveries; leg spinner Chandrasekhar did sometimes. But each could bowl what some consider a mythical delivery: the unplayable ball.

Having said that, we must ask ourselves if there is such a thing as an unplayable ball, which by definition is successful one hundred percent of the time. For success depends on the player (what is unplayable to Mohammed Siraj may not be so to Sanju Samson), the context of the game, and the batter’s luck. Bowlers sometimes have the mortification of seeing their best deliveries being edged to the boundary. The unplayable ball defeats not just technique but anticipation. We judge the effort by the effect.

As the philosopher and cricket fanatic George Cox has suggested, in play the ball as an object disappears; it becomes a collection of possibilities and potentials for achieving desired outcomes. It becomes a bundle of intentions, a collection of meanings.

Batters react in one of two ways after being dismissed. Some, unwilling to acknowledge bowler skill, say it was their own mistake that caused it. The mythology of batting depends on control. Others, not wanting to be seen as technically inadequate, say they were done in by an unplayable ball.

Master at work

At the T20 World Cup, Bumrah’s range of slower deliveries showed a master at work. The slow yorker hit the stumps with amazing precision. Three New Zealand batters found it unplayable in the final. The fourth played too early and was caught brilliantly. For doing consistently what seems impossible to others while making his unusual action work for him, Bumrah has been called a genius. That, and a high percentage of ‘unplayable’ balls.

For so long have we seen Bumrah do this nonchalantly that we take it for granted; worse, we berate him for a rare off day. Luckily for Indian cricket, he has fewer of them than most.

Nobody quite figured out Chandra. The greatest batter of his time, Viv Richards confessed the bowler gave him nightmares. The whirring polio-withered right arm brushed against the ear as it delivered the ball at its height. Batters uncertain of where to meet it did so with a prayer. Chandra held the ball like a medium-pacer, on the smooth side along the seam, not across it like orthodox spinners do.

Two is enough!

A modest man with acute self-awareness, he said that so long as there was a slip and a short leg, it didn’t matter where the others fielded. “If I am bowling well, I need just those two fielders, if I am bowling badly, 22 fielders will not be enough,” he once said.

Bumrah, equally unorthodox, with an arm so straight it seemed to bend backwards, delivers the ball seemingly in front with a remarkable wrist action. As with Chandra, there is no ‘tell’ for the batter, no obvious change in approach or angle relative to the bowling crease. From roughly the same number of steps, each could deliver a ball to rival the fastest. It is magical, carrying the magic of the improbable.

It is to the credit of their coaches that both were allowed to progress untouched by strained orthodoxy. Cricket is a broad church. The unorthodox remind us not to take the coaching manual too seriously.

Short-format cricket was not as sophisticated in Chandra’s time, the focus being on denying runs rather than taking wickets. Consequently he played just a single one-day international. Bumrah, who began as a white ball specialist, might well be the greatest fast bowler to have played the game.

Both had another thing in common — a ready smile and a gentle manner. It has been a privilege to live in an era which has seen these two giants in action.