There’s a pattern to how captains use Jasprit Bumrah. When the game starts slipping away from them, they turn to Bumrah to bring things back under control. Most of the time, he delivers either a wicket or a shut-down over. Or both. But what do you, as a captain, do when Bumrah himself is under pressure?
In an IPL season where “no target is safe” is the unofficial tagline, bowlers have had to make peace with the fact that will get hit. But that does not align with Bumrah, who, though without his usual share of wickets, has operated at a respectable economy rate of 8.07 in IPL 2026. It’s quite normal for him: when Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) made 277 in 2024 against Mumbai Indians (MI), Bumrah went at 9.00 when the other 16 overs cost 15.06 each.
The latest match between MI and SRH had a sub-plot: Abhishek Sharma, in the hitting form of his life, vs India’s best bowler. The match-up leaned heavily in Bumrah’s favour with two dismissals in five innings, just 17 runs conceded, and a strike rate barely touching 75.
This season, bowlers have relied on changes of pace against Abhishek, and a few have even found success: Mohammed Shami had undone Abhishek with one, while variations from bowlers like Jacob Duffy and even part-time options like Shashank Singh had found success.
On the day, Bumrah’s opening over – the second of the innings – in MI’s defence of a formidable 243 started quietly but then he sent down back-to-back wides, and his rhythm seemed to waver. And when he turned to his trusted change of pace, Abhishek seemed ready. Picking his slower ball early, he swung cleanly through the line to send it soaring over mid-on. The over continued to unravel rather scrappily, as a leg-side delivery went off the thigh pad for four, and 14 runs were taken.
The runs started flowed freely for Abhishek and Travis Head against the rest of the bowlers, with Trent Boult, Will Jacks and AM Ghazanfar all feeling the brunt of some Travishek brutality. For the sixth over, Hardik Pandya, inevitably, turned to Bumrah for respite.
Only this time, it wasn’t coming. Head welcomed him by going on the front foot to hammer a slot ball straight back for a towering 99-metre six. When Bumrah adjusted with a slower ball, Head was already set, opening the face to carve it over backward point for four. Abhishek joined in on the fun later in the over, charging down to a short delivery and slicing it high over backward point. Bumrah had gone for 18 runs and the powerplay closed with SRH at 92 for no loss.
Going all guns blazing in the powerplay has become the template for chasing big totals this season, and SRH are pros in that game. They were scoring at over 15 an over, with more of their dangerous batters still to come. For MI, their safety net had slipped and the game was rapidly drifting out of control. The 32 runs from Bumrah’s first two overs (including the leg-byes) was the most he has ever given away in a powerplay in the IPL, and the most he has conceded in the phase across any two-over spell in T20s.
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That takedown of Bumrah set the tone for the rest of the chase. The runs kept flowing but in the middle came a brief twist with back-to-back wickets for Ghazanfar, including that of Abhishek, but it barely slowed SRH down. Because that brought Heinrich Klaasen to the crease.
By the end of 13 overs, every MI bowler had been targeted and Hardik had no option but to go back to Bumrah. The equation had come down to 68 off 42 then. The question was whether he could do what he does so often under pressure, but Klaasen’s answer came quickly.
Bumrah missed his length bowling one full and in the slot outside off and Klaasen needed no invitation, openeing the face of the bat and driving cleanly and powerfully over extra cover for six, a statement stroke that underlined the kind of night Bumrah was having. Another slower ball was whipped over square leg for four, this time by Nitish Kumar Reddy, and the misery continued.
Between that and Bumrah returning to bowl his final one in the 18th, SRH had reduced the equation to 24 off 18 balls. Could MI still hope? No, said Klaasen, as he clubbed one more four, over Bumrah’s head.
But perhaps the most audacious shot off Bumrah on the day came from the uncapped Salil Arora.
Bumrah missed his yorker outside off, and Arora simply stayed still and launched it over long-off for a no-look six, one of the cleanest hits of the passage. The MI fans at the Wankhede had little to cheer about by then but this was the moment when the stadium fell truly silent, and sections of the crowd began to head for the exits.
Bumrah ended with 0 for 54, his third-most-expensive spell in the IPL, and his costliest since the 55 he conceded back in 2021. That was also the year he had last been hit for as many as four sixes in an innings and on the day he conceded five.
There were still familiar elements in his bowling, be it the hard lengths, the changes of pace, and the search for yorkers, but it came without his usual control. This is also a season when Bumrah hasn’t been able to string together three or more dots in a row as often as he does, doing that once in nearly four overs, while in 2020, he was doing it more than twice as frequently. He’s also not hit his usual speeds this season, with his average down to 132.1kph.
For SRH, it was just a continuation of the philosophy they have embraced for a few seasons now. This time, unlike what happened in the 2024 record-breaking game, they not only dismantled the attack around Bumrah, but also took down the one bowler most teams build their innings without dismantling.
Stats inputs by Shiva Jayaraman.
