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Jasprit Bumrah avoids travesty, India's greatest pacer deservingly gets on Lord's Honours Board: ‘When my son grows…’
Jasprit Bumrah showed great mastery with the ball as he picked up five wickets to get himself on the Honours Board at the Lord's Cricket Ground.
Ajit Agarkar has it, but Sachin Tendulkar and Sunil Gavaskar don’t. Chetan Sharma has it, but Anil Kumble doesn’t. Their names on the celebrated Lord’s Honours Board, that is.
In many quarters, Lord’s is still considered the Home of Cricket. Not everyone subscribes to that theory, one of the popular spokes in the wheel being that the ground that slants eight feet two inches from one end to the other. But Lord’s is the home of the Marylebone Cricket Club, acknowledged as the custodians of the Laws of the Game, and whether one likes it or not, it is steeped in history, in tradition, in most things ‘cricket’.
To get on the Honours Board is considered a great accomplishment. Not the ultimate, of course, but it gives a high like few others. Every five-wicket haul or a century in a Test innings makes its way into an elite but not exclusive list. Agarkar, the current chairman of the senior selection committee, wended his way following an unbeaten 109 in the 2002 Test, which India lost by 170 runs. Neither Tendulkar, Test cricket’s most prolific run-and-century-maker, nor Gavaskar, the original torchbearer of Indian batting, has a ton in a Lord’s Test, though Gavaskar did unleash 188 for a Rest of the World XI against MCC in the Bicentennial match in August 1987. For the record, Tendulkar’s highest Test score at Lord’s is a modest 37.
Chetan Sharma, Agarkar’s predecessor as selection panel head, stormed the Honours Board for his five for 64 in June 1986; India’s five-wicket win was their first Test success at Lord’s. By contrast, the country’s highest wicket-taker, Kumble (619 wickets), has never taken more than three wickets in an innings here.
Until the ongoing third Test of the latest five-match showdown, Jasprit Bumrah had played just one game at Lord’s – in August 2021 during the Covid-19 pandemic, when he went wicketless in the first innings but returned figures of three for 33 in the second as India bowled England out in 51.5 overs to conjure a remarkable 151-run triumph. Bumrah, 31, is on his third full tour of England; given the state of his back and the fact that even now, he has to be managed carefully, this could well be his last Test visit to this country.
It would have been a travesty had India’s best pacer of all time, with due respect to Kapil Dev and the rest, bowed out of Test cricket without making it to the Honours Board. It wouldn’t have been the end of the world, not by any stretch of the imagination, but it doesn’t hurt, does it, to be etched on that board forever? Bumrah wouldn’t have entertained any great regrets if he had missed out – if anything, he has enriched it with his presence – but… Get the drift, right?
On a sweltering, brutal Friday morning with the sun beating down resplendently, Bumrah stormed into excellent company with a terrific morning burst, followed by the scalp of Jofra Archer that earned him his place in the Lord’s pantheon. Archer was wicket No. 5, by which time in a five-over morning spell with the second new ball, he packed off centurion Joe Root, Ben Stokes and Chris Woakes in no time. It was as good a spell as any he has sent down, the second time in as many Tests in the last three weeks that he has taken a five-fer, reaffirmation – if that was required – that no one is better than him in this universe at the time of writing.
“It's good to come on the Honours Board, but I know that there will be things, discussions, there are so many cameras here, we come to practise, views, subscribers, these days everyone has to engage with each other, but they are not in my hands. People are earning money through me; that is also a good thing, at least they pray for me,” Bumrah philosophised, going off on an unnecessary tangent.
"The most memorable Test match for me was in England last time when I and (Mohammed) Shami bhai were batting (they put on 89 undefeated for the ninth wicket) and we came from behind and bowled them out in 60 overs. It is a good thing to come on the Honours Board. When my son grows up, I can tell him that my name is on the Honours Board. But memories are more important; obviously, when I play for India, I want to contribute as much as I can. When you are able to do that, you feel good.”
The Honours Board isn’t the be-all and end-all right now for Bumrah, clearly. But when his son grows up… Who knows?
