Finance
Jasprit Bumrah’s incredible skill in all forms dominated the year, as the Indian speed maestro won the ICC Men’s Cricketer of the Year 2024 award, surpassing Travis Head, Joe Root, and Harry Brook to win the coveted Sir Garfield Sobers Award.
Bumrah becomes the latest member of a select group of Indian cricket players to receive this honor. Virat Kohli (2017, 2018), Ravichandran Ashwin (2016), Sachin Tendulkar (2010), and Rahul Dravid (2004) are some of his predecessors. Bumrah stepped up to the plate and reminded the cricket community of the importance of great bowling in a year where batters frequently took center stage.
In red-ball cricket, Bumrah’s exploits were nothing short of spectacular.He became the fastest Indian pacer to achieve 200 Test wickets, finishing the year with a staggering 71 dismissals in just 13 matches at an average of under 20. His 2024 haul is the highest by any bowler for the year and second only to Kapil Dev’s record for the most wickets in a calendar year by an Indian pacer.
In his ICC Test Bowling Rankings, Bumrah demonstrated his supremacy by surpassing the 900-point mark and finishing with a record-breaking 907 points, the most ever by an Indian bowler.
Bumrah reached his peak during the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, taking an incredible 32 wickets in five Test matches. He won Player of the Series after his exploits, which included five-wicket hauls in Perth, Brisbane, and Melbourne, destroyed the strong Australian batting order. The Australian batsmen were put in a state of chaos by his unrelenting accuracy and ability to extract pace and movement on both flat and difficult wickets. Bumrah has already claimed 77 wickets in the current 2023–2025 WTC cycle, which is the most any bowler has ever taken in a single cycle. This includes crucial performances in India’s games against New Zealand, Bangladesh, and England besides Australia.
Bumrah’s Test accomplishments were enormous, but his white-ball exploits were just as captivating. Bumrah led India’s surge in the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup and helped the nation win its first world championship in 17 years.
He claimed 15 wickets at an astounding average of 8.26 and an economy of just 4.17, making him the tournament’s top wicket-taker. His reputation as the ultimate match-winner was solidified by his captivating performance against Pakistan (3–14) and his game-changing 2–18 in the final versus South Africa.
Additionally, Bumrah became the fastest Indian pacer to achieve the 200-wicket mark in Test cricket.
Source: IANS
