In a few minutes, for England he had gone from “Bazball” to “Bust ball” as 107 for no loss became 109 for 3.
Regardless of the outcome of this test match, Indian cricket has real captaincy material in Jasprit Bumrahwho can lead the ‘Men in Whites’ for a long time if the cricketing establishment trusts him.
Bumrah, India cricket’s new ‘smiling assassin’, has the potential to become a ‘Captain Marvel’ if given a full-time responsibility.
It will be a steep learning curve for Bumrah and being a fast bowler, there will be injury breaks as well as interruptions in workload management.
But as Indian cricket gets ready for the next leadership transformation, the Ahmedabad slinger will be far more worthy than a KL Rahul, who is seen as the natural successor to Rohit Sharma in all formats.
Virat Kohli was a very different kind of captain, where passion and instinct had an intoxicating bond and that’s how he channeled his energy.
In the case of Rohit Sharma, you can perceive him in many ways and try to gauge his body language but he comes from the Indian school of captaincy in Mumbai who still favor method over madness even though he doesn’t give that impression.
Rahul has given no indication that he is a crafty captain or that he can turn the tide in a pressure cooker situation. South Africa’s away streak was a classic indicator where he captained in the second game.
In Bumrah’s case, in the four days he led the team, he showed shades of Mahendra Singh Dhoni – the sweet smile that never refuses to leave his face, the proportionate aggression without being in your face and maintaining a poker face even when the opposition is in “dumb mode”.
Whether it was Jonny Bairstow’s onslaught on Sunday or the 100 opener partnerships on Monday, Bumrah seemed able to keep the quotient quiet.
And without too much ceremony, Bumrah has this uncanny ability to make a difference in the proceedings without making a fuss about his presence.
Its intimidating presence is felt after dealing the damage. Stuart Broad felt it on day two, as did the English front three.
He knows the art of redeeming himself after a mistake. Ask Lees and Ollie Pope, they’d tell you how they wished Bumrah had never played ball without a ball and then desperately sought to make up for it. And he did it in style.
On day three, no one expected him to do a Jonty Rhodes, but he came out of his middle position to dive deep and catch Ben Stokes, one ball after dropping a keeper.
On day 4, when the shoulders were on the verge of sagging, he took matters into his own hands. The umpires had then changed a Dukes ball for the umpteenth time and suddenly it started to deflect slightly more.
For number nerds, the new ball used at the start of the innings deviated 0.4 degrees from the surface and when the ball was changed, the India captain was able to get a full one degree move.
The result was Zak Crawley not reading the line and inward movement and Ollie Pope not reading the line and outward movement.
The key to leadership is balance and that was also evident in the DRS taken by his deputy Rishabh Pants in his absence, pushed by Kohli after Shami hit Joe Root on the pads.
TV replays showed the ball sailing over the stumps.
In the next part Shami, again hit Root on the pads, this time below the knee and in a split second looked adjacent.
Everyone wanted to come up but Bumrah from his middle position came and was heard to be coming down the side of the leg.
These are signs of good things to come.
