Been working on Bumrah’s fitness to negate risky action, reveals Bharat Arun

06/30/2020

Team India’s bowling coach Bharat Arun admitted that the unorthodox Jasprit Bumrah has quite a ‘risky’ action but revealed that together with pacer, he has been working on the latter’s fitness to instead strengthen the body. Arun said that a change of action isn’t always the wisest thing to do.

When Jasprit Bumrah made his international debut back in 2016, the initial thought in the minds of all those who watched him was unanimous - that due to his bizarre and unorthodox action, he was a candidate for a serious injury. That fear still exists in the minds of all those who watch the Ahmedabad-born tearaway quick, and it was only six months ago that the right-arm quick sustained the first major injury of his career - a back stress fracture. But that, in fact, was due to the pacer’s excessive workload and Bumrah has, much to everyone’s surprise, more often than not managed to completely eliminate the risk of sustaining injuries due to his painful-to-watch action.

And according to Bharat Arun, the bowling coach of the Indian cricket team, the pacer has nullified the risks of injury by instead working excessively hard on his fitness and body strength.

"We knew that Bumrah has an unconventional action. So there will be a lot of strain and effort which he would be putting on his body. So, we have been preparing in such a way so that his body can take the rigours of an unconventional action,” Arun said on episode three of Inside Out, a show hosted by India women's team coach WV Raman, reported TOI.

While several pacers in recent times, including Pat Cummins and James Anderson, have made tweaks to their bowling actions in order to suit the needs of their bodies, Arun is of the opinion that in the case of Bumrah, it made more sense for the pacer to instead strengthen his body. According to the coach, bowlers with unorthodox actions, who are efficient and successful, are better off without tweaking their actions and that, as revealed by him, is the reason Bumrah has instead chosen to build his fitness to absorb the rigours of his action.

“Changing his bowling style might not have guaranteed the bowler's performance at his optimum level. So rather than trying to change him (Bumrah's bowling style), we might as well make him stronger physically in all the different parameters of fitness so that he is able to take the rigours of conventional action.

"If bowlers having unconventional action are being effective, then I wouldn't recommend changing their action.”