Remember Shane Warne's Ball Of The Century, the delivery that proclaimed his genius to the cricketing universe?
Ah, but that was so last century. Thirty one years ago this June.
We have a contender for the Ball of The 21st Century.
The yorker that cleaned up Ollie Pope's stumps on Saturday, February 3, 2024 on Day 2 of the second England-India Test at the Dr Y S Rajasekhara Reddy ACA-VDCA cricket stadium in Visakhapatnam.
IMAGE: 'at 1.45pm local time, Bumrah took to Ollie Pope's stumps like a lumberjack. Middle stump jagged left, leg stump flew right, leaving off stump standing there all alone,' Ali Martin wrote in Britain's The Guardian newspaper.
'Pope's feet were briefly in a different postcode, his bat on the floor, as Bumrah raced past him in sheer delight.' All photographs: Francis Mascarenhas/Reuters
IMAGE: 'As Yorkers go, Jasprit Bumrah might just have produced the Stairway to Heaven equivalent to Ollie Pope. The one that will get played & replayed for years to come but you'll never ever tire of it,' exulted cricket writer Bharat Sundaresan.
IMAGE: 'Not many single deliveries qualify for must-see status straight away, but the fifth ball of Jasprit Bumrah's seventh over in Visakhapatnam yesterday surely did,' noted the great Australian cricket writer Gideon Haigh.'
'Again, Bumrah cantered in to his final gallop. Again, Bumrah's arm hyperextended like a kevlar mast on maxi yacht.'
'Halfway down, the ball was on a seventh stump line, but it came back with the angle and the swing to spread-eagle Ollie Pope's middle and leg stumps. So did Bumrah set off the crucial charge in a controlled detonation of England's first innings.'
IMAGE: 'Subtle reverse swing is the most dangerous weapon in the game. It’s not always used so spectacularly tho...' noted Stuart Broad (604 Test wickets).
IMAGE: 'Bumrah got Pope with a yorker that Wasim Akram would have been proud of,' former England captain Michael Atherton noted in The Times newspaper.
IMAGE: 'Trailing off, Pope irritatedly punched the back of his bat, as though he had somehow contributed to the dismissal; really, he contributed no more than an onlooker to a traffic accident,' Haigh wrote.
'It would almost have been a shame otherwise, for cricket spectacle scales few heights greater than speed's precision scattering of stumps.
'A candidate for ball of the (twenty-first) century? Certainly a tour de force in that essential and compelling delivery, the yorker.'
IMAGE: But Bumrah wasn't done yet. He cleaned up Ben Stokes with another beauty, an appropriate 150th wicket.
IMAGE: Stokes flung his bat and expressed helplessness at the zinger that terminated his inning. An image that captured the majesty of a fast bowler at the acme of his powers.
IMAGE: A fitting end to the second Test. Another Bumrah thunderbolt bowled Tom Hartley and brought India a deserved victory.
Sure there was Yashasvi Jaiswal's 200 and Shubman Gill's 100, but there was no better nominee for Player of the Match than Jasprit Jasbirsingh Bumrah.
Photographs curated by Manisha Kotian/Rediff.com
Feature Presentation: Ashish Narsale/Rediff.com
