Bumrah returns to nets, tests Sooryavanshi with probing deliveries
Jasprit Bumrah returned to India’s nets at the Kotla and tested teenage sensation Vaibhav Sooryavanshi with a series of probing deliveries. The pacer’s return brought fresh energy to the camp as Sooryavanshi faced Bumrah, Arshdeep Singh and Yash Thakur
New Delhi: There is a different vibe to the Indian team the moment one gentleman checks in.
Jasprit Bumrah was back at the Kotla, all smiles, with a spring in his step and displaying his wide array of skills that kept 15-year-old sensation Vaibhav Sooryavanshi on his toes.
The last time Sooryavanshi received his maiden call-up, Bumrah was not part of the T20 set-up in the UK and joined the team for the ODIs.
Under the Kotla lights, India’s greatest-ever paceman decided to ask a few probing questions of a Gen Alpha superstar in the making.
The first delivery pitched on a good length and, as Sooryavanshi jabbed at it, he missed it completely.
The next delivery, at the same length, hurried the youngster as it passed his bat before coming down.
The third was a perfect yorker that Sooryavanshi just about managed to dig out.
The fourth was bowled slightly back of a length, and all the youngster could manage was a healthy nick.
Four deliveries and the master craftsman had given a trailer of what Sooryavanshi might have to face at the highest level from countries with better pace attacks.
There was one delivery from Bumrah that was slightly overpitched, and the Boy Wonder dispatched it through the covers.
It wasn’t one of the best training sessions for Sooryavanshi, who missed at least three aerial catches during fielding drills and played and missed against all the pacers.
Yash Thakur, who had received some rough treatment in the Duleep Trophy semifinals, also beat him, as did Arshdeep Singh with some appreciable seam movement.
But if one man stole the show, it had to be Bumrah. He bowled a few deliveries to skipper Shreyas Iyer, who was beaten for pace both on the inside and outside edges.
The pace was there, so was the swag and that smile of a man secure in his craft and sure of himself.
Jasprit Bumrah is back in the nets, and there was happiness in every nook and corner of the Kotla.
