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When Jasprit Bumrah and co. came out to bowl on the fifth day at The Oval, the pitch wasn't expected to do them any favors. The sun was out and the track seemed very flat, with no moisture on the surface at all. Although Shardul Thakur dismissed Rory Burns with the ball nipping away from round the wicket, it was an odd delivery out of hundreds that were doing nothing for the fast bowlers.
Just before Lunch, Mohammed Siraj bowled a short spell and there was a hint of reverse swing. However, going into Lunch, Joe Root and the other English batsmen would've still picked Ravindra Jadeja as their biggest threat due to the huge rough patch for him to bowl into. Little did they know that India's pace spearhead Jasprit Bumrah had other plans.
While other fast bowlers struggled to get anything out of the dead Day 5 pitch, Bumrah was making the ball talk. In his outstanding six-over spell right after Lunch, the Mumbai Indians (MI) star sent Jonny Bairstow and Ollie Pope back to the pavilion with big, booming inswingers.
The spell was a masterclass about reverse swing. Jasprit Bumrah was breathing fire and if not for Joe Root hoarding the strike towards the end of his burst, the 27-year-old would have picked up more wickets.
Bumrah then bowled a near-unplayable inswinging yorker to Root, who somehow managed to keep it from hitting the stumps. Such was the breathtaking nature of the spell that every Indian fan was craving some more Bumrah magic, but Virat Kohli decided against it in order to manage the workload of his trump card.
Will Jasprit Bumrah play the fifth Test in Manchester?
Jasprit Bumrah himself wouldn't want to rest unless an injury forced him to. He is in quite a rhythm and would want to help Team India leave England with the series in the bag.
That said, managing Bumrah's workload would be on the minds of the team management, with the second part of IPL 2021 and the T20 World Cup on the horizon. Even if Bumrah doesn't play, he will still be in contention for the Man of the Series award as he has already picked up 18 wickets at an average of 20.83 in the first four matches of the five-Test series. He has been absolutely world class, showing the world exactly how deadly an operator he can be with the red cherry in hand.
Jasprit Bumrah crossed the 100-wicket milestone in Tests at The Oval, becoming the fastest Indian pacer to do so. But it's just the start of what promises to be a glittering career in the red-ball format for the 27-year-old.
