T20 WC: Suryakumar, Bumrah deliver a big win for India against Afghanistan

With their best T20 batter and their most complete cross-format bowler coming to the party, India completed a stroll in the Kensington Oval park on Thursday afternoon (June 20).

On the face of it, this was a tricky assignment. Millions of India’s supporters would have been delighted that the first of their T20 World Cup 2024 Super Eight opponents were Afghanistan. But the Afghans are a dangerous T20 outfit with immense skill and, most importantly, without any fear.

Rohit-Kohli pair fails again

Afghanistan are replete with star performers in various T20 leagues, not least in the IPL where Rashid Khan, Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Mohammad Nabi and Noor Ahmad, among others, have made a lasting impression. The 20-over format is their strongest suit and at the first sign of uncertainty or anxiety, they have the skill and the nous to get all over the opponents.

For a little while on Thursday, it appeared as if India might provide that opening. A fourth consecutive failure for the new opening pair of skipper Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli, coupled with the latter’s travails on a slow surface, seemed to be playing right into Afghanistan’s hands when Suryakumar Yadav came charging out, like a knight in shining armour.

The Surya show

Suryakumar is in a league of his own as a T20 batter, and he showed why he is so feared with a stunning exhibition of shot-making that belied the nature of the pitch and the quality of the Afghan attack. If he did meet his match on this day, it was in his own teammate who goes by the name of Jasprit Bumrah.

In their own way, both are massive figures in the T20 landscape but if Rohit had to pick only one between them, the nod will likely go to Bumrah. That’s not because Suryakumar is less of a cricketer; it’s just that Bumrah is non-pareil, the leader of the bowling group, exemplary in all three international variants but whose skillsets and control in the 20-over format make him indispensable.

Scoreboard pressure

Afghanistan needed a mini-miracle once Suryakumar, with support from Hardik Pandya, muscled his team to 181 for eight. Afghanistan relish setting totals and using scoreboard pressure as well as their assortment of spinners, spearheaded by their inspirational captain and leg-spinner Rashid, to strangle opponents. This time, they had to tackle a different challenge, one that became insurmountable when Bumrah got into the thick of things.

There is little that hasn’t been said about Bumrah. Words, however, don’t do justice to the impact he has, both on his teammates and on the opposition.

He makes batters do strange things with his very presence. Mostly with a smile on his face stemming from his enjoyment of executing his craft to near perfection, Bumrah spells doom like few others. He is quite the complete bowler, using the strength of his upper body, the suppleness of his right wrist and the hyperextension of his bowling arm to zero in on limb and wicket. Unlike traditionally great fast bowlers who attacked the crease, used their lower body to generate momentum and generated tremendous pace – Dennis Lillee, Michael Holding and Malcolm Marshall are names that come to mind, alongside Allan Donald, Dale Steyn and Anrich Nortje – Bumrah gets his zip from his shoulder, his forearm, his wrist.

Bumrah's superb spell

As much as pace, he is the master of variety. With no discernible change in action, he goes from 140 to 125 kmph, and because he releases the ball much further than most because of the hyperextension, length-picking becomes extremely difficult. Just about the only way Bumrah can be collared is he is off rhythm, if the ball doesn’t leave his hand the way he intends it to. Fortunately for India, those days are as rare as hen’s teeth.

In this T20 World Cup, Bumrah already has two Player of the Match awards. He could have had a third on Thursday for his spell of 4-1-7-3, his scalps of opener Rahmanullah Gurbaz, the tournament’s leading scorer after the first round, and Hazratullah Zazai in his first two overs pushing Afghanistan to the brink. There was no coming back from that, and the rest of the attack could operate safe in the knowledge that the tempo had been set.

Bumrah didn’t bowl between the sixth and 16th overs, so Afghanistan’s batters knew they had to contend with two Bumrah overs in the last five. That forced them to take risks against the rest, primarily the three left-arm spinners – Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav and Ravindra Jadeja – all exceptional when there is a little help. That’s the Bumrah effect; even when he doesn’t have the ball in hand, he creates chances.

Suryakumar is almost, but not quite, the batting equivalent of Bumrah but only because he is surrounded by a sea of incandescent talent. Rohit, despite his recent lean trot, has five T20I centuries, Kohli is, well, Kohli, and then there is Rishabh Pant, effervescent and ebullient. Pandya is an accomplished ball-basher, Shivam Dube is the slayer of spin. And Axar and Jadeja can weigh in with unfettered aggression. Even there, though, Suryakumar is the fulcrum because of his range of strokes that, like Bumrah, enable him to take the pitch out of the equation.

Suryakumar’s ability to adapt

Where others battled to come to terms with the slowness, Suryakumar unleashed the sweep. The conventional one, but one that spanned the arc between forward of mid-wicket and long-leg. He swept on line, mostly, taking balls from well outside off and sending them zinging along the quick outfield. When the bowlers got a bit straighter, he smacked the ball in the air down the ground or over wide mid-wicket; there was also one screaming off-drive that reiterated the range of strokes at his disposal. If this was a slow pitch, no one had told him that.

Suryakumar’s ability to adapt was brought into focus by the fact that he needed only 27 balls to reach 50 here, whereas a week back in New York, he had taken 49 deliveries for that milestone, against US. The situation then called for him to occupy the crease; here, he needed to cut loose. As a gear-batter, he has few equals.

As India seek to go deep in the tournament, Bumrah and Suryakumar, perhaps in that order, will need to play lead roles. Roles they are accustomed to, roles they have slipped into over the last three weeks. In some style.