You do not take on Jasprit Bumrah in the death overs. You just do not. Now imagine it happened. Who'd be the batsman that you would have backed to do? AB de Villiers? Virat Kohli? David Warner? Maybe Andre Russell?
It wasn't any of those fancy names, though, who put on a show against Bumrah at Hamilton in the third T20I. It was the unheralded Kane Williamson who found a way against Bumrah's incredible death bowling with a small technical tweak that had the Indian pacer in two minds.
"Lot of swing and misses. We were trying but we were facing one of the best death bowlers in the world (Jasprit Bumrah). It is tough to get him away at the end," Martin Guptill had commented after New Zealand struggled to get Bumrah away in the second T20I.
Bumrah's bowling on such pitches is fairly straightforward. He mixes up the slower deliveries with ones that move in quickly with the angle. The slower ones are usually fuller and wide outside off-stump to deny batsmen the power to get underneath the deliveries.
On Wednesday, though, Williamson seemed to have a clear plan against Bumrah. Mike Hesson on-air commented that New Zealand had found a way against Bumrah - the Indian seamer has bowled most of his pacy deliveries at the stumps or on a fourth stump line, while his slower balls are wider.
So what does Williamson do?
He takes a casual step to the off-side against Bumrah. If it's slow and wide, he is ready to carve it on the off-side because by moving closer, he has generated the required momentum to generate power. If it's full and at the stumps, he hits through fine leg.
The plan is, in fact, glaring if you think about it. But it needed a batsman of the quality of Williamson to execute it to perfection. In the 17th over, he hit Bumrah for a hat-trick of fours, two of the three deliveries being on the slower side. The after effect of this is that suddenly Bumrah isn't sure of his slower balls anymore.
In the Super Over, he fronts up to Williamson again, and he decides that the slower ones are decoded, so he goes full and straight. But Williamson had been ready for that.
In the 19th over, he had flicked a yorker from under his bat to fine leg for a four. Here he whacks Bumrah over square leg for six and it foils the Indian's mindset. A full toss next ball was slashed to long-off and Bumrah had gone for 62 runs in his five overs including the one in the Super Over.
Only time will tell if Williamson indeed revealed a fool-proof plan against Bumrah. What he, however, completely succeeded in doing is mess up Bumrah's plans in the death, something not a lot of players have managed to do.
Read | Rohit Sharma thwarts his perennial nemesis, Tim Southee
Feature image courtesy: AFP / Michael Bradley
