By Prof. B.K. Viswanath
Geoffrey Boycott was furious after England lost the second Test to India at Visakhapatnam on Monday Feb. 5th and he fused — “Bazball was a failure, a flop” and he lashed out at Brendon McCullum, the English coach and Ben Stokes, captain of the team. To cool down his outburst, one would remind Goeffrey of the match at Edgbaston in 2019 where the hosts had the last laugh against India. There were many good balls bowled by the pacemen in this match. In this context one would like to ask Sunil Gavaskar and Boycott as to which of the three balls delivered by Bumrah (2) and Anderson (1) were the deadliest and unplayable? In the first instance, Bumrah outclassed the first Test top order batsman Ollie Pope (who was largely responsible for the touring team’s victory at Hyderabad), with a torpedo like yorker and bamboozled him for a low score. He also bowled a beauty to the English skipper, who raised both his hands in disbelief, as the ball pierced his defense and hit his off stump. In India’s second Innings, skipper Rohit was beaten and bowled by Anderson with a ball that just curled in late and took away the off stump. The query might change Geoffrey’s anger into contemplation and leave Gavaskar in awe of the bowling magic of Bumrah and Anderson.
