Undoubtedly, Don Bradman is the greatest batter ever to play the game of cricket. He finished his Test career with almost a 100 average. For every batter, the ultimate honor is to be called the next Bradman. Sachin Tendulkar lived up to that tag, but for former Australian cricketer Adam Gilchrist, the Bradman of bowling currently is Jasprit Bumrah. The Mumbai Indians (MI) pacer, who returned from a back injury, is yet again showing why he is the best in business.
The speedster has bowled 69 balls in seven matches that he has featured in so far for MI in the ongoing Indian Premier League (IPL 2025) season. However, what is staggering is that he has nearly bowled 10 dot balls per match, which is higher than any bowler in this IPL season with an economy rate of under 8 runs per over. Only CSK's Khaleel Ahmed and RCB's Josh Hazlewood are the two bowlers with better dot-ball percentages than the MI pacer. However, Khaleel's as well as Hazlewood's economy rate is more than Bumrah's 6.96.
Jasprit Bumrah's return to MI has also coincided with the franchise turning a corner after a slow start to its IPL 2025 campaign. MI has won six out of the seven games since the speedster's arrival. Bumrah started a bit sedately as he went wicketless against DC and RCB. The pacer turned the heat on in the last two matches against LSG and RR, picking up a total of six wickets for just 37 runs in his eight overs.
Not only in T20 cricket, Bumrah has shown he is equally menacing in the Test and ODI formats of the game. Gilchrist said Bumrah is the bowling equivalent of Bradman.
"He's maybe the best bowler, fast bowler of all time. When you start stacking up the statistics and the varying conditions that he has to go out and execute those skills in, I guess you look at Sir Donald Bradman's numbers compared to his peers, and he's just so far ahead, so I think Bumrah is sort of in that category across all the different variations that you get in conditions and pitches that you've got to bowl on. He's significantly further ahead than the peers around him, so that tells you we are truly watching greatness," Gilchrist said on Cricbuzz.
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Adam Gilchrist says Australia are intimidated by Jasprit Bumrah
In the recently concluded Border Gavaskar Trophy, Bumrah was the thorn in the flesh of the Aussies. Each of their batters did not face much difficulty while facing other bowlers. But once Bumrah had the ball in hand, he always looked like taking a wicket due to the awkward bounce and lethal variations he possessed. Gilchrist stated that Australian batters were intimidated facing the MI pacer.
"A seamer from India, consistently throughout, particularly the series that we just saw in the summer, back home in the Australian summer, no, I don't think so," Gilchrist said when he was asked whether Australians were intimidated and afraid of a bowler from India like they were against Jasprit Bumrah.
Bumrah picked up a staggering 32 wickets in the five-match Test series and was the highest wicket-taker by a distance.
"We just sat and watched in awe at close range commentating on that series, and again, I know it's a different format, but he is the best all-format bowler; that's nothing to argue there," the former wicketkeeper-batter said.
