Back on duty, Bumrah will give Sooryavanshi a stern test in Delhi

On Friday night, in the corner of the Arun Jaitley Stadium, usually reserved for the mundane practice of the nets, cricket became theater for a few minutes: Jasprit Bumrah, bristling, ran into Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, 17 years his junior and once his conqueror. Everything else, the drizzle, the floodlights, the three-match series against Afghanistan that added to it all, was just stage dressing.

That moment was still a good hour away when the players first left, but the evening had been drawing closer since the first practice.

When Team India arrived for the second practice session ahead of the T20I series, the covers were still on. The dressing room was packed, with Duleep Trophy winners Ishan Kishan and Vaibhav Sooryavanshi along with runner-up Tilak Varma rejoining the team after sitting out Friday’s practice. And there, freshly restored to the fold for the first time since July, was the eighth wonder of Indian cricket: Jasprit Bumrah, fresh and rare. Jasprit Bumrah joined the India T20I squad in Delhi on Friday (PTI Photo)

A faint sun broke through the clouds as the drizzle eased and the ground staff pulled down the blankets. India took the field with real energy. Newly appointed fielding coach Subhadeep Ghosh ran for the first thirty minutes and worked with the group with the eagerness of someone still new to the job, like a trainee determined to make an impression in the first week.

Divided into two groups, the players completed drills with direct hits and encouraged each other.

“Nice, good speed boys,” exclaimed Ghosh, unfazed by the conditions, which were still slightly damp, as his players surged forward, picked up the ball and fired into the stumps. The practice continued to be a catchy exercise. Fielding coach Subhadeep Ghosh gives a pep talk in Delhi (PTI Photo)

“Angle bana le, jaise otpal ho raha hai” (set your angle as if someone is batting there), he shouted from near the practice strips and directed the players stationed near the boundary rope. Sooryavanshi looked less than fluent in this stretch as the spotlight began to bite, missing a few difficult opportunities.

BUMRAH VS SOORYAVANSHI

Bumrah and Sooryavanshi during the Nets in Delhi (India Today Photo)

Along the border, reporters gathered in a thin, attentive line, not wanting to miss a minute of the session.

Bumrah scored his run alongside his colleagues: Arshdeep Singh, fit-again Nitish Kumar Reddy, Shivam Dube and Yash Thakur, who were drafted in as cover for the injured Harshit Rana.

Watching him warm up, fresh off a long rehab, felt like I was looking at an engine being put back together and flipped over for the first time, the same parts, waiting to see if they still fired the way they used to. It was a long spell and Bumrah didn’t even flinch as he bowled to his full potential for 45 minutes.

When Vaibhav Sooryavanshi and Sanju Samson came out to face the pacers in one of the two nets, the reporters did the arithmetic almost in unison: it would be the first time Bumrah had bowled Sooryavanshi in the Indian nets. The two have crossed paths before, in the IPL, most memorably then The 15-year-old started one of the game’s most feared bowlers for a sixa shot that none of those present quite forgot.

But on Friday at the Kotla, Bumrah was in no mood to drop any of India’s top order lightly.

1. YORKER

Binoculars and watchful eyes turned to the nets as Bumrah began his run-up. The first ball was a yorker aimed straight at Sooryavanshi’s boots; flew off leg stump, no contact was made. It wouldn’t stay quiet for long.

Arshdeep, Thakur, Dube and Nitish Kumar Reddy, meanwhile, were Sooryavanshi’s turn and the teenager looked comfortable enough against them, clearing his way into rhythm before trying to free his hands. But the momentum he was chasing never quite arrived as Bumrah kept coming.

2. GOOD LENGTH RIPPER

The second delivery was a ripper, a length ball that shaped and beat Sooryavanshi and finally finished, the young batsman had nothing to offer.

3. ANOTHER YORKER

The third was a tip crusher, aimed perpendicular to the block hole; this time Sooryavanshi put the bat down in time to keep it. Bumrah’s engine had already warmed up properly and he turned his attention to roughing up Samson with sharp yorkers and short balls curled into the side of the returning keeper.

4. CELEBRATION

Bumrah made life difficult for Sooryavanshi in the nets (India Today Photo)

Then came the wicket ball. Bumrah ran in hard, found the right length again and drew an advantage from Sooryavanshi that would have been clear to any keeper.

Bumrah knew it the moment it happened and broke into something between a celebration and an appeal: a celebration.

Sooryavanshi did manage one delivery, driving an over-the-top delivery away from the maestro, but it was an exception on a day when Bumrah seemed intent on giving his teammate a small taste of what he has served opponents for years.

In an earlier interview with IndiaToday.in, Ian Bishop once described how Bumrah’s reputation itself became a weapon of sorts.

“And then of course there’s the reputation. When I played with Curtly Ambrose, you saw Matthew Hayden play him with respect and then go after me. That’s the kind of respect that Bumrah has earned.”

That respect was on full display at the Kotla on Friday: not a single member of India’s highest order, Sooryavanshi and Ishan Kishan excepted, dared to take it.

Despite it all, there was lightness in the middle. Bumrah’s smile returned every time he completed his follow-up and Samson laughed at the bowler’s intensity before wrapping up his stint against the pace and heading for the spinners’ nets, located to the left of the centre-lane.

Returning from the knee injury that ruled him out of the ODIs in England in July and the subsequent Test series in Sri Lanka, Bumrah left head coach Gautam Gambhir and his teammates in no doubt about his fitness on his first day on the job.

The session lasted over three hours. Most of the top-order took a beating, the pace bowlers, spinners and net bowlers led by the ever willing Navdeep Saini steamrolling towards the end despite the thick evening humidity. Saini was jumping around as if he was rehearsing an appeal to the national side; that was his bouncer left Ishan Kishan twitching towards the end of his batting block, the ball caught him high as he crouched, forcing the physio to check his back. Ishan Kishan suffered an injury scare in Delhi on Friday (India Today Photo)

As always, Abhishek Sharma stuffed last and left last. At ten o’clock, Gambhir and batting coach Sitanshu Kotak were still putting him through tough training with the short ball and bowled from a short distance off the pitch.

A lot happened during the intense evening training. But the image that lingers is Bumrah’s celebration after that edge, and for once Sooryavanshi plays the master with real respect. He may yet try to return the favor next time the IPL comes around.

– The end

Issued by:

Amar Panicker

Published on:

12 Sep 2026 07:33 IST