Former Australia Test captain Allan Border has rated star India pacer Jasprit Bumrah as highly as West Indies great Malchom Marshall and said he has not seen anyone like the Bumrah, who rarely bowls a wicketless spell.
Jasprit Bumrah has been on an impressive trajectory throughout 2024. In his most recent match, Bumrah reached an important test milestone, becoming only the second Indian bowler, after Kapil Dev, to win 50 Test wickets in Australia.
This was achieved when he got rid of Mitchell Starc on the third day of the third Test in the ongoing Border-Gavaskar Trophy. Interestingly, since the 20th century began, no Australian bowler who has claimed at least 20 wickets in Australia has had a better bowling average than the remarkable 17.82 that Bumrah has put together.
Bumrah claimed superb figures of 6-76, as the hosts lost their final three wickets for just 40 runs on the third day of the Gabba Test on Monday.
"I cannot compare him aptly to Marshall because I never faced Bumrah but just watching him there is not much between them. Bumrah is remarkable. He rarely bowls a spell without taking a wicket. He is different, " Border told the News Corp.
"Because of his action, he lets the ball go a little late. And he keeps on smiling. He can thrice bowl at one batsman and smile every time. I have never seen any other like him," he said.
Earlier on Day 2, the 31-year-old paceman bagged his third Test five-wicket haul in Australia. For an Indian, Kapil Dev tops this list with five five-wicket hauls on Australian soil while Anil Kumble finds himself second on this list with four fifer on Australian soil.
This was Bumrah's 12th five-wicket haul in Test cricket and his 8th in SENA countries, that is South Africa, England, New Zealand, and Australia. He has become the first Indian to do so. Bumrah broke the record of Kapil Dev, who is second in the list with 7 fifers to his name.
Bumrah with 50 wickets in Australia looks likely to go past Kapil Dev's 51 wickets in Australia. He is well on his way also towards breaking the record of taking the most wickets by a player in any single Border-Gavaskar Trophy series.
In the series so far, he has 18 scalps with two matches to go. It puts him over halfway to topping Harbhajan Singh's mark of 32 wickets in the three-Test series in India in 2001.
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