IPL 2025 | ‘If you want wickets, he gets wickets. If you want to stop runs, he stops runs’ - Varun Aaron showers praise on Bumrah

‌Jasprit Bumrah has been Mumbai Indians’ go-to man this season with the pacer giving crucial breakthroughs that has helped the side bounce back at crucial junctures. After missing the initial part of IPL 2025 with a back injury that he picked up during the fifth Test of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, the pacer has made an impactful return with MI winning eight of the 11 matches that he was a part of.

Though he missed the side’s first four games this season, he is sixth in the overall list, second among MI bowlers, of wicket-takers with a tally of 18 scalps from 11 matches. Apart from the wickets, Bumrah has been literally unplayable topping the list of most economic bowlers in IPL 2025 averaging an astonishing 6.36 runs an over through the tournament.

"He's like an antidote, a vaccine that can cure any illness, which a bowling side can have,” Varun Aaron was quoted as saying to ESPNcricinfo. "If you want wickets, he comes and gets you wickets. If you want to stop runs, he stops runs for you. Man, what a bowler. And the belief he has in his ability. You have an international coach who is obviously panicking because his bowlers have suddenly started to go to the cleaners, and he just turns around and is like 'Just calm down, I'll do the job for you'.

"The challenge every opposition has to Mumbai Indians, and Jasprit Bumrah more importantly, is that the 24 balls he bowls are such a threat," Tom Moody added. "It's not impossible but it's so difficult to get big overs against him. So you're really playing 20 overs versus 16 to a certain extent. And he is so far ahead of the rest, it's ridiculous.”

Bumrah was in his element during MI’s 20-run win against GT in the Eliminator in New Chandigarh on Friday. Coming into bowl with two-set batters Sai Sudharsan and Washington Sundar having already added 81 off 40 and a further 81 needed off 42, the pacer showed why he is the best bowler in the world with a moment of brilliance.

After conceding three runs off the first three balls, he came up with a pinpoint yorker which Sundar could not even block as the left-handed batter lost balance while losing his leg stump. That wicket changed the course of the game as Bumrah gave away just 12 runs in his last two overs to complete an impressive spell of 1/27.

"For him to bowl from that angle is really difficult," Aaron said. "It's easier for him to go wide to a left-hand batter but for him to actually target that leg stump of Washington Sundar. Washy was setting up for something wide or something in his arc, but that was just impossible to negotiate."

“That yorker he bowled to Washington Sundar, you just don't bowl a better ball than that. That is the absolute perfect leg-stump yorker that's gone between his legs. At pace, to a batter that's going at 200 strike rate. It just totally blew him away,” Moody explained.