Credit to John Wright for shaping my career, reveals Jasprit Bumrah

His name is synonymous with toe-crushing yorkers and slower balls that make you look like an idiot and what-not. His bowling action is as weird as it can get. But Bumrah is one of today’s finest fast bowlers in world cricket across all formats of the game. As for Bumrah, he credits a lot of his success to the man who spotted his talent. 

“I always give him a lot of credit. I tell him, ‘I’m here because of you.’ So I was playing Syed Mushtaq Ali. He had come to see us play against Mumbai. Many players from the Mumbai squad were already there in the Mumbai Indians team. He had come there to see them. And when he saw me, he felt that something was different. After the first game, he spoke to Parthiv Patel. When Parthiv told me that John Wright was asking about me, I thought he was making fun of me. You’ve seen all these things happen, but you don’t expect these things to happen to you,” Bumrah said on Cricbuzz’s Spicy Pitch.

The 26-year-old revealed that during the early days of his IPL career, he was completely unaware of what becoming a professional cricketer meant. 

“When I came into the side, I was a 19-year-old kid. I was skillful, yes, but I had no sense of professionalism or training, no idea about maintaining diets, etc. I couldn’t even do a pushup. He was always behind me to train harder. I used to ask him, ‘Why am I doing this if I’m able to bowl?’ But he insisted on being a professional. Slowly, I began to understand that for a 19-year-old to go up and reach the highest level, you have to do all that,” he said.

“I was very lucky to work with him. He has an eye for talent. You can see how many Mumbai Indians players have ended up playing for the country. I still stay in touch with him,” Bumrah added.