Kyle Jamieson - of sticking to plans and reaping rewards on the go
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A little more than two years ago, a young pace bowler, answers to the name Jasprit Bumrah, made his Test debut in a country that always favoured his breed. He bowled a ball wide outside off-stump, only to be scampered for an effortless four by AB de Villiers. For Bumrah, reality struck.
The first spell bowled by Bumrah that day in Cape Town was enough of an indicator that red-ball cricket is not his cup of tea. He badly struggled and failed to land the full balls that made him an exciting prospect in the limited-overs cricket. With every ABD caress through cover, Bumrah looked increasingly susceptible and bereft of ideas. Things needed a divine intervention, which eventually arrived in the second innings. Bumrah was threatening, his seam representation would put Mohammed Shami to shame as he took out AB de Villiers, Quinton de Kock and Faf du Plessis to bring India back into the game. A star had arrived and all mouths were shut as he went on to take another 58 wickets in the next 11 games at an average under 20.Â
If anything, Jasprit Bumrah’s career is a show of clarity of thoughts, of doing the same thing over and over again with a touch of unpredictability. It is standing up and delivering quality stuff on a regular basis with a little fuss. I wonder if Kyle Jamieson took a lesson out of Bumrah’s books before making his Test debut at the Basin Reserve. Or else, how could you tell me that a bowler, albeit a 6’8’’ one, accounted for Cheteshwar Pujara, Virat Kohli and Hanuma Vihari on the same day, with each delivery being better than the last one. He got the ball to move late and then backed up the seam movement with swing around the stumps. The one that got the better of Cheteshwar Pujara got the whole world excited, with Trent Copeland, a fine seam bowler, on Twitter, going gaga over the debutant’s seam representation.
It mustn’t have been easy for Jamieson, even though a couple of weeks ago he made a fine arrival to the international stage. He was, after all, replacing Neil Wagner, the Kiwi workhorse who has single-handedly defined their quest for bowling short day in and day out and with a great deal of success. That he has a completely different skill-set adds to the pressure but Jamieson, like the ODI series, rose above everything to take the maximum benefit of the wind that is very famous in Wellington.
Coming in as the second change bowler, Jamieson had the comparatively old ball in hand and New Zealand were running the risk of wasting the advantage given by the green-tinge surface. That Cheteshwar Pujara was batting alongside Agarwal should have been the ultimate threat but Jamieson was hardly perturbed by that, bowling hard-lines to entice the batsmen for a drive. He was lucky that Colin de Grandhomme was doing the tough job of bowling against the wind, leaving the debutant the best slice of the cake.Â
That helped him find disconcerting bounce from what looked like a slow surface throughout the day. In his first over, he angled a delivery into Cheteshwar Pujara before it moved away in the last second to leave the batsman completely shell-shocked. If it was one facet of his bowling that was on offer, he bowled a short one in the next over, leaving Pujara to dictate the course with extra bounce. Pujara was caught in two minds, as the edge reached the safe hands of BJ Watling to give Jamieson his first Test wicket. The entire phenomenon was a stand-out feature for the remainder of the day which was in a way a formal decoder of his talent and moreover, the clarity of his plans.
It is rare for a debutant bowling to one of the best batsmen in Test cricket with proper plans. Not for Jamieson though. Unfazed by the occasion, he was accurate against Virat Kohli and had his plans set for the right-hander from the very first ball he bowled to him. Everyone and their grandmother know that Kohli has problems facing the ball wide outside off-stump, with his head generally falling over the direction of the ball, and Jamieson was out to exploit that. His first delivery was way outside off-stump before pushing the Indian skipper back. In between, he kept on mixing the deliveries before unleashing that wide length ball to which Kohli had no idea than losing the weight to the trigger direction and edging it to Ross Taylor at slip.Â
"The feeling has not sunk in yet. I am feeling very pleased with my performance on day one. This wicket does assess bowlers, it was all about putting the ball in the right areas. I tried to keep things pretty simple, I was trying to make the Indian batters play the ball," Jamieson told the media after stumps on Friday.
He has earned all the right to celebrate as much as he wants before returning to the field of play tomorrow for the fact that he has a war to win now - only battles have been conquered. But with the kind of clarity and audacity he has shown so far, don’t be surprised if he continues another day of dominance at the Basin Reserve. Just like Bumrah did in the entierty of that series and beyond.
