The ball that became an 'instant classic'

Shane Warne to Mike Gatting Old Trafford June 1993 The champion leggiersquos first delivery in Tests on English soil to an excellent player of spin A ripping legbreak that drifted into the righthander pitched outside leg broke sharply turned right across the face of Gattingrsquos bat and crashed into the offstumpIn that moment itself that ballmdashlsquothe ball of the centuryrsquomdashfired the imagination like no other Over time it developed a legacy of its ownIndiarsquos Jasprit Bumrah celebrates the wicket of Englandrsquos James Anderson on Saturday PicAFPStunning yorkerJasprit Bumrah to Ollie Pope Visakhapatnam February 2024 A laserdriven pinpoint accurate reverseswinging screamer of a yorker which started well outside off surged through the air like a missile forced the batsman to get his feet out of the way in selfprotection and plucked out the middle and leg stumps A magical ball delivered by a magical bowler Stumps spreadeagled the batsman in a daze the bowler ecstatic his mates beside themselves with joy That delivery has already developed its own legacyAlso ReadShubman Gill undergoes scans on injured finger says would be fineBumrah has deliveredmdashand will continue to delivermdashsimilar yorkers but and maybe onersquos saying this because of recency bias this Pope dismissal will be remembered for ages Pope had destroyed India with a seriously awesome 196 in the previous Test the hosts needed to bounce back from a rare home loss they were at less than full strength with several key personnel missingOllie PopeYashasvi Jaiswalrsquos doubleton had propelled them to 396 in the first innings of the second Test but they needed someone to step up with the ball Bumrah did so in spectacular fashion the Pope yorker the piece de resistance of a memorable bowling display that netted him six wickets in the first innings and nine for the matchIn a series where spin was expected to play the dominant rolemdashafter all we are playing in IndiamdashBumrah has by far been the most impactful bowler True rookie England leftarm spinner Tom Hartley has 14 wickets but Bumrahrsquos 15 have each been an event His scalps have cost him 1066 runs each he has needed only 2313 balls for every wicket the corresponding numbers for Hartley are 2457 and 4128 respectively He has yet to taste success with the first new ball but with an older ball Bumrah has been lethal It wonrsquot be an exaggeration to say that Bazball or not Bumrah has done a number on Englandrsquos batsmenElite status in teamBumrah wouldnrsquot have expected to bowl 575 overs this early into the fiveTest series but that number both is a tribute to the status he enjoys as the teamrsquos strike bowler and a semiindictment of the spinners who havenrsquot been the potent force they otherwise are at homeWhere Bumrahrsquos economy is a measly 276 R Ashwin has conceded 408 runs per over Kuldeep Yadav 409 Ravindra Jadeja 421 and Axar Patel 438 Bumrah is the reason why the series stands 11 In the land of spin howrsquos that for brilliance991Bumrahrsquos match figures in the second Test v England1066Bumrahrsquos average in two Tests is best across both teams2313Bumrahrsquos strikerate across two Tests v England The next best is Tom Hartleyrsquos 4128