When Jasprit Bumrah was suspected for chucking
The story of how a modern master’s unwavering belief in his unconventional action helped him overcome early doubts and attempts to change it
The following is an extract from the book 'Boom Effect'
As a teenager, Bumrah hadn’t fully developed the ‘Superman’ action that the world would come to know and love. Back then, his bowling arm didn’t straighten the way it
does now. His non-bowling arm was almost totally unutilized. The jump was more exaggerated, and he was more side-on at the crease.
‘It was even more weird, and as a result, even more difficult to pick,’ Juneja quips before demonstrating an action that seems more absurd than alarming.
Considering Bumrah made a habit of imitating other bowlers, including the odd left-armer, his attempt to model his own action on Brett Lee’s was comically unsuccessful. One teammate gently described it as ‘pretty poor’; another claims he tried to copy Lee’s ‘load up’ but shifted his bowling arm so suddenly that it ended up looking bizarre.
Footage from his age-group cricket days suggests that he could bowl with a fluent run-up and a more conventional load-up and arc, with which he even shattered stumps of opposition batters while playing for Gujarat Under-19s.
Nonetheless, Bumrah remained oblivious as to what his natural action really looked like. All he knew was that it served a purpose. The first time he had to confront reality was at the National Cricket Academy (NCA) camp in Bengaluru in mid-2012, where his bowling was recorded, and the footage shown to him.
Such a strange action understandably raised suspicion. During Bumrah’s first years of organized cricket, opposition batters, coaches and umpires in clubs, schools, districts and even states raised questions as to whether his bowling arm remained straight throughout the delivery. Such scepticism seems natural, especially from the unfortunate boys who had to face him.
Yet surprisingly, several coaches and umpires who we spoke to denied attempting to ‘correct’ the action or even suspecting that it might be contentious. Apparently, there are plenty of biomechanical experts out there who instantly understood the nature of Bumrah’s hyperextension despite never having seen anything like it.
As ludicrous as it sounds, their biggest backer is Bumrah, who has publicly confessed that no coach tried to change his action. Yet plenty of his teammates and local journalists state otherwise. A couple even claim ‘every single one of them tried to change him’. Such a reaction would have been perfectly reasonable: notwithstanding the questions around the legality of his action, his non-bowling arm was not being put to use. And Indian cricket has long been suspicious, contemptuous even, of cricketers who dare to stray from the coaching manual.
According to Kalaria, coaches tried to tinker with Bumrah’s bowling during a 2012 NCA camp. ‘Jassi was very clear with the fact that he wanted to stick to his natural action,’ he reflects.
‘Many people at NCA were trying to change his action and bowling mechanism, but he didn’t want to change anything. He was very sure with his mindset that he wanted to bowl the way he was bowling and stick to his natural flow of body. Even when they said it could lead to injuries, he was willing to take it as part and parcel of the game.’
His claims are supported by one of the NCA coaches who worked with Bumrah. ‘He was bowling quick, but with a very awkward action, and there was a lot of recommendation to remodel his action,’ the coach confessed, requesting anonymity.
‘To be honest, we did try to change his action.’ The remodelled action looked good enough for the coaches, but the ball simply wasn’t coming out right. ‘So we said, why not just let him continue with his natural action when he’s able to bowl fast, and it’s awkward,’ the coach added. ‘But we also wondered what the possible repercussions of that action could be.’
The coaches at the NCA sat down with physios and the strength-and-conditioning trainers to figure out if the action was sustainable. And if not, what were the alternatives? The input from that conversation was that Bumrah would have to be ‘exceptionally strong’ in order to be able to bowl fast for extended periods of time.
‘We sat him down and told him the importance of his fitness and also a great diet plan from the nutritionist because he was very fond of eating—burgers and pizzas and milkshakes and things like that. We told him, you really need to give up on these things and follow a strict diet regime in order to become strong,’ the coach added.
The coach believes that experience shaped Bumrah forever, yet his assessment doesn’t seem entirely accurate. Bumrah’s course was largely plotted by his own clear-
mindedness. During his stint at the NCA, coaches suggested that he spend some time at the MRF Pace Academy in Chennai. Bumrah declined the opportunity, fearful that coaches there would try to remodel his action.
Of course, retaining such conviction despite all the warnings was partially a reflection of the success Bumrah had enjoyed up till then. But it would have been only natural for a youngster to follow the advice of such experienced, esteemed coaches.
Bumrah’s dogmatic refusal reflected the unshakeable self-belief that has been so evident at every stage of his career. Somehow, this inexperienced youngster knew his method was right. And he wasn’t going to be told otherwise.
Bumrah’s action may be natural, but it wasn’t designed to be such. After all, it is a compilation of the greatest hits he saw on TV, honed in an open-air parking lot. But his philosophy regarding his body was simple: no action is foolproof or safe, and every fast bowler has to endure pain at some point.
Even the stuttering run-up that Bumrah developed was a result of circumstance. Initially, he would run in hard to the crease; yet over time, he realized he wasn’t transferring much momentum and pace from his run-up into his final delivery. That revelation led him to his own unique approach: the jumbled walk, hop and show-horse gallop.
Most importantly, he realized his action wasn’t causing pain or discomfort. For young Jasprit, that was endorsement enough. So he kept at it. But how would the rest of the world handle the unorthodoxy of an action tailored for a parking lot in Ahmedabad?
Kishore admits that a few kids in his academy brought Bumrah’s action to his notice, suggesting it could be illegal. He claims to have brushed those concerns aside. There are reasons to believe him. Only a few years before Bumrah joined his academy, Kishore’s son, Siddharth, was called for illegal action in domestic cricket. Although he was eventually cleared, his career was impacted.
Pancholi’s reason for accepting Bumrah’s action early on is stranger. He claims that, as a teenager playing tennis-ball cricket in Vijaynagar, he had faced a bowler with a similar release. No one objected to his bowling action in those recreational games, so he wasn’t taken aback the first time he saw Bumrah. Moreover, he wasn’t the only bowler in Ahmedabad with such an unconventional action. ‘There are many bowlers with such awkward actions,’ Pancholi reflects. ‘In the case of Bumrah, it was just slightly more exaggerated and with a lot more pace.’
There were others, too, who had reasonable responses for their lack of apprehension. Tushar Trivedi recounts a dramatic story from a cricket match played in Ahmedabad in November 2003:
“India A were playing that game and one of the opposition bowlers’ arms was coming quite close to the umpire’s head at the point of delivery. All of us who were watching that game that day were convinced ‘woh throw daal raha hai [he’s chucking]’. At that point, we were so convinced that if that bowler wasn’t chucking, then no bowler on this planet was a chucker. However, Anshuman Gaekwad (former India cricketer and coach), who was seated with us, believed that the action was fine. That bowler turned out to be Lasith Malinga. Since then, whenever we suspect an unusual action, we consult senior cricketers. We have been a bit liberal with our assessment towards unconventional actions."
This apprehension was understandable. Around the time Bumrah started playing competitive cricket, Gujarat had seen the careers of a number of their state bowlers — not just Siddharth but also Monish Parmar and Amit Singh — negatively impacted by allegations of ‘chucking’. Each was subsequently cleared, and the establishment was slowly learning its lesson: don’t jump to conclusions at the first sign of suspicion.
Nonetheless, on several occasions, opposition captains and managers did raise doubts. Often, these were nothing more than mind games, an attempt to add a little extra pressure in the midst of battle.
One instance, though, stood out: Bumrah’s maiden game for Gujarat Under-19s against Karnataka in Mysore across the first days of December 2011. Bumrah might have been the fastest bowler in Gujarat, yet he wasn’t handed the new ball. Instead, it was shared between Roosh Kalaria and a seventeen-year-old Chintan Gaja. Introduced in the eighth over, Bumrah struck immediately, having D. Nischal caught by Axar Patel.
But wickets weren’t easy to come by. Led by a double century from Karnataka’s skipper, R. Samarth, the hosts piled up 418 runs in their first innings, batting for more than four sessions. Bumrah picked up only one more wicket, cleaning up Mohammed Taha for a fifth-ball duck, in his 22 overs of bowling.
In response, Gujarat were bowled out for 281, with Bumrah contributing nothing from number eleven. More worryingly, he didn’t bowl at all in Karnataka’s second innings.
Somnath Jha, one of the on-field umpires in that game, remembers the details of the match quite vividly, not least because it was the only game he officiated in with ‘Bandi Bhai’, Vilas Bandiwadekar, who passed away in 2020 due to COVID-19. Jha remembers the captains, the way Bumrah got zip off the surface, how he dismissed the batters and even the ugly sight of his bowling.
Jha makes an honest admission. ‘There is no way I could’ve predicted that he would become so big when I first saw him bowl. He was fast, the ball would shoot off the deck, the wickets he got in that game were off good deliveries. But gosh, that awkward action, that weird run-up! I was wondering “how did this guy even get selected?”’
What he doesn’t remember though is raising suspicion over Bumrah’s action, a claim made by Smit Patel, Gujarat’s captain in that game. Jha could be forgiven for forgetting the incident. Smit, too, failed to recall it until it was brought to his attention by his former Gujarat teammate and current USA captain, Monank Patel.
As per Smit, a few minutes before the lunch break on the second day’s play, Bumrah was no-balled for chucking. Karnataka had already made a massive score, and with concerns over the action of his fastest bowler, Smit looked for a quick fix. He reached out to the match referee, Atul Bedade, for guidance. He took Bumrah along, showed Bedade the hyper-extended arm in question, and attempted to convince him to allow Bumrah to continue. The match referee told Smit not to bowl Bumrah in the second innings but assured him the issue would be sorted out before the next match.
For young Jasprit, it must have been an anxious, unsettling few days. He had come from nowhere to reach Gujarat’s Under-19s, yet his first interaction with high-level umpiring brought not just suspicion but outright accusations of cheating.
What kind of thoughts must have bounced around his head as he was confined to the outfield for Karnataka’s second innings? Still green, did he himself wonder whether his action was illegal?
Concerned that such suspicion might recur, Smit spoke to the umpires before the start of the next game and was pleased to discover that no red flags had been raised around Bumrah’s action.
Yet Jha’s version of events contradicts Smit’s account. ‘We did not report his action. I have certainly not done it ever in my career, especially because at that age, you don’t want to be so harsh on those kids. If you don’t know enough, it can ruin their careers. So we leave it to the coaches to fix whatever they want to.’
Shreyas Gopal, the Karnataka all-rounder who later spent many years with Bumrah at MI, played in that game but doesn’t recall any significant conversations around Bumrah’s action, or even his bowling, in the changing room of the opposition camp.
Nonetheless, the Gujarat players weren’t taking any chances. ‘The umpires were a bit suspicious of his action,’ Kalaria reflects. ‘All the spinners around that time were bowling with full sleeves. So we told Jassi also to bowl in long sleeves. That was my idea. We knew there was nothing wrong with his action, so we didn’t want to lose him.’ Whether Bumrah took Kalaria’s advice or not, he did bowl with full sleeves for at least a few games that season.
After a while, Bumrah even altered his bowling style—binning the ‘Brett-Lee-load-up’ and shifting towards the action we see today, where the bowling arm splays outwards, pointing towards the sky.
‘The straight loading that you see now—that was done purely because he was suspected of chucking,’ Juneja explains. ‘Jasprit changed his action to loading with a straight arm, so there was no doubt that the arm was coming through straight’.
As a result, the scepticism around his action lessened, and Bumrah’s cricket career took flight.
The Boom Effect: Decoding the Magic of Jasprit Bumrah by Aayush Puthran & Nicholas Brookes is available to buy on Flipkart, Amazon and all leading book stores
