Bumrah takes six wickets as ferocious India leave England trailing in second Test

Despite growing up in a country of princely batters and wily spinners, it was only ever fast bowling that interested Jasprit Bumrah. And not just any kind of fast bowling. Bumrah, a telly addict as a kid, said before this series that he was “fascinated” by the quicks who sent stumps cartwheeling out of the ground with the yorker.

One suspects a good few others may have been converted watching the second day of this second Test in Visakhapatnam when, at 1.45pm local time, Bumrah took to Ollie Pope’s stumps like a lumberjack. Middle stump jagged left, leg stump flew right, leaving off stump standing all alone. Pope’s feet, meanwhile, were briefly in a different postcode.

This was the zing bail-exploding highlight of a day when Bumrah reverse-swung the force firmly in India’s favour. The hosts were batting again by the close, their first innings lead of 143 swollen by a further 28 runs without loss. Bumrah was feet-up in the dressing room preparing to speak to the TV coverage, that famous smile still beaming about the figures of six for 45 from 15.5 overs that had sent England careening to 253 all out.

Kuldeep Yadav may like a word here, the left-arm wrist spinner with the Harry Houdini haircut having picked the lock of England’s bright start – Ben Duckett caught off the shoulder of the blade at silly point – and finished with three for 71. Playing in the absence of Ravindra Jadeja, Yadav’s array of low-slung gyroscopic deliveries from that rarely seen angle was certainly a point of difference as the tourists collapsed.

But there was no usurping Bumrah as India’s headline unorthodox act, that whip-crack action sending the ball snaking this way and that either side of tea and lacking any known anti-venom. It was Bumrah’s second five-wicket haul in what is remarkably just his sixth Test at home, the best of which – though less jaw-dropping than Pope’s demise – being the working over of Joe Root that ended with an outfoxed nibble to slip on five.

England had been feeling pretty good about life before all this. Jimmy Anderson had crisply helped nip out up the last four India wickets before lunch, some early grumpiness at Ravichandran Aswhin for his position at the non-striker’s end eased by figures of three for 47. Yashasvi Jaiswal had turned his overnight 179 into a sparkling 209 but India, 396 all out from 336 for six, had many wondering if they were a touch light.

This only deepened when the tourists raced to 110 for one in 22 overs by the afternoon drinks, Zak Crawley having purred his way to 76 in a bevy of punched straight drives and two slog swept sixes. But once he skewed Axar Patel’s third delivery high to backward point, the emergence of Root, and with the ball having started to go late for the less threatening seam-up of Mukesh Kumar, Sharma fatefully whistled for Bumrah.