Kingston:
“I owe my hat-trick to the captain,” Jasprit Bumrah told an enamoured Virat Kohli after blowing away the West Indies with his heady cocktail of line and length, pace and bounce.
Known as much for his infectious energy as for his incredible batting, Kohli was caught on the stump mic saying, “What a bowler, man! What a bowler”, after Bumrah removed one the West Indies batsmen.
Part of the credit for Bumrah’s hat-trick go to skipper Kohli, who insisted on a review after Roston Chase, his third victim, was initially given not out by the on-field umpire Paul Reiffel.
The review was correct as Bumrah became only the third Indian to claim a hat-trick in Test cricket.
“Actually I didn’t know, I was not very sure of the appeal, I thought it was bat so I didn’t appeal so much, but it was a good review in the end. So, I think, I owe that hat-trick to the captain,” Bumrah said as Kohli held the mic for ‘BCCI TV’ during an interaction.
It is not easy to sweep Kohli off his feet, but Bumrah has done that a few times in recent times, and the second day of the second Test against the West Indies was one of those moments.
In a lethal opening spell, Bumrah (6/16) rattled the West Indies by picking up the first five wickets, three of which came in successive balls in the ninth over.
“Sometimes when there is so much of help in the wicket, we saw in the previous inning as well there was a lot of bounce they were getting a lot of bounce, they were getting late movement as well.
“So, sometimes, when there is so much of help you can get greedy, you can go for wickets, you can try to be over aggressive, that time you have to keep things simple, just try and bowl good balls and create pressure. That was the thing that was going on in my head,” Bumrah said.
The leader of the team asked the leader of the pace pack about understanding among the fast bowlers.
“Understanding is very good with other pacers. There is a lot of communication that goes on and off the field as well. When I am getting wickets, somebody else’ job at that time is to create pressure, when somebody else is getting wickets my job is to create pressure.
“So a lot of communication goes — when there is no help what we can do — Ishant has played more than 90 Test matches, Shami has played a lot of Tests.
“So lot of ideas come in and then we try to help each other if things are not going well, push each other. So that’s a good relation going on and hopefully we will continue,” Bumrah said.
