The signs were there long before the wickets came. Jasprit Bumrah‘s opening spell at Edgbaston yielded nothing on the scoreboard, but it had everything else – pace that kept climbing, movement through the air, relentless accuracy and an England top order scrambling for answers. By the time the breakthroughs arrived, the damage had already been done.
Facing most of the brunt and remaining unscathed was Ben Duckett. Of the four overs, he alone faced 19 deliveries, scoring 7. But it was in those remaining 16 deliveries that Bumrah showed why he remains the best all-format bowler in the current era.
Relentless consistency
The first one of the morning struggled to touch 129kmph and Duckett happily defended. But there was a cue. He was already getting to angle the ball away. The next two were beaten with both landing almost in a blind spot and missing the outside edge by millimetres.
In between, he copped a blow to his fingers, winced in pain, but Bumrah was in no mood to show any mercy. If anything, he showed a ruthless side as well, sending a yorker in the first over, which hit the left-hander flush on his foot, with the ball pitching outside leg, saving him.
More importantly, as he grew into the spell, the speedometer kept climbing as Duckett and Jacob Bethell survived a spell that they may not frequently confront in ODIs.