Back on duty, Bumrah gives Sooryavanshi a stern examination in Delhi

For a few minutes on Friday evening, at a corner of the Arun Jaitley Stadium usually reserved for the mundane business of net practice, cricket briefly became theatre: Jasprit Bumrah, back and bristling, running in at Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, 17 years his junior and once his conqueror. Everything else, the drizzle, the floodlights, the three-match series against Afghanistan that occasioned all this, was just the stage dressing.

That moment was still a good hour away when the players first walked out, but the evening was building towards it from the very first drill.

The covers were still on when Team India arrived for their second training session ahead of the T20I series. It was a full house in the dressing room, with Duleep Trophy winners Ishan Kishan and Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, along with runner-up Tilak Varma, rejoining the squad after sitting out Friday's practice. And there, freshly restored to the fold for the first time since July, was the eighth wonder of Indian cricket: Jasprit Bumrah, fresh and raring to go. Jasprit Bumrah joined the India T20I squad in Delhi on Friday (PTI Photo) A weak sun broke through the clouds once the drizzle eased, and the ground staff peeled back the covers. India took the field with real energy. Newly appointed fielding coach Subhadeep Ghosh ran the first thirty minutes, working the group with the eagerness of someone still new to the job, like an intern determined to make an impression in his first week.

Split into two groups, the players ran through direct-hit drills, cheering each other on as they went.

"Nice, good speed, boys," Ghosh called out, unbothered by conditions that were still faintly damp, as his players lunged forward, collected the ball, and fired in at the stumps. The drill rolled on into high-catching practice. Fielding coach Subhadeep Ghosh leading a pep talk in Delhi (PTI Photo)

"Angle bana le, jaise batting ho raha hai" (set your angle, like there is someone batting), he shouted from near the practice strips, directing players stationed out near the boundary rope. Sooryavanshi looked less than fluent through this stretch, spilling a few difficult chances as the floodlights began to bite.BUMRAH VS SOORYAVANSHI Bumrah and Sooryavanshi during the nets in Delhi (India Today Photo)

Along the boundary, reporters had gathered in a thin, attentive line, unwilling to miss a beat of the session.

Bumrah marked out his run-up alongside his fellow quicks: Arshdeep Singh, a fit-again Nitish Kumar Reddy, Shivam Dube, and Yash Thakur, drafted in as cover for the injured Harshit Rana.

Watching him warm up, fresh from a long rehabilitation, felt like watching an engine reassembled and turned over for the first time, the same parts, waiting to see if they still fired the way they used to. It was a long spell, and Bumrah did not so much as flinch through 45 minutes of bowling full tilt.

When Vaibhav Sooryavanshi and Sanju Samson walked out to face the pacers in one of the two nets, the reporters did the arithmetic almost in unison: this would be the first time Bumrah bowled to Sooryavanshi in the India nets. The two had crossed paths before, in the IPL, most memorably when the then 15-year-old had launched one of the game's most feared bowlers for six, a shot nobody present had quite forgotten.

But on Friday, at the Kotla, Bumrah was in no mood to let any of India's top order off lightly.1. YORKER

Binoculars and watchful eyes turned towards the nets as Bumrah began his run-up. The first ball was a yorker aimed squarely at Sooryavanshi's boots; it drifted wide of leg stump, no contact made. It would not stay that quiet for long.

Arshdeep, Thakur, Dube and Nitish Kumar Reddy each had their turn at Sooryavanshi in between, and the teenager looked comfortable enough against them, easing his way into rhythm before looking to free his arms. But the momentum he was chasing never quite arrived, because Bumrah kept coming hard.2. GOOD-LENGTH RIPPER

The second delivery was a ripper, a length ball that shaped away and beat Sooryavanshi all ends up, the young batter left with nothing to offer.3. ANOTHER YORKER

The third was a toe-crusher, aimed square at the blockhole; this time Sooryavanshi got his bat down in time to keep it out. By now Bumrah's engine had properly warmed up, and he turned his attention to roughing up Samson with sharp yorkers and short balls angled into the hip of the returning wicketkeeper-batter.advertisement4. THE CELEBRAPPEAL Bumrah made life difficult for Sooryavanshi at the nets (India Today Photo) Then came the wicket ball. Bumrah ran in hard, found the good length again, and induced an edge from Sooryavanshi that would have been a straightforward take for any wicketkeeper.

Bumrah knew it the instant it happened, breaking into something between a celebration and an appeal: a celebrappeal.

Sooryavanshi did manage one release, driving an overpitched delivery from the master away, but it was the exception on a day when Bumrah seemed intent on giving his own teammate a small taste of what he has spent years serving up to opponents.

Ian Bishop, in an earlier conversation with IndiaToday.in, once described how Bumrah's reputation has itself become a kind of weapon.

"And then, of course, there's reputation. When I bowled with Curtly Ambrose, you'd see Matthew Hayden play him with respect, and then come after me. That's the kind of respect Bumrah has earned."

On Friday, at the Kotla, that respect was on full display: not one member of India's top order, Sooryavanshi and Ishan Kishan included, dared to take him on.

For all that, there was lightness in the middle too. Bumrah's smile returned each time he completed his follow-through, and Samson had a laugh about the bowler's intensity before wrapping up his stint against pace and heading to the spinners' nets, set up to the left of the centre strip.

Returning from the knee injury that had ruled him out of an ODI in England in July and the Test series in Sri Lanka that followed, Bumrah left head coach Gautam Gambhir and his teammates in no doubt about his fitness on his first day back at work.

The session ran past three hours. Most of the top order got a proper hit, with the pace bowlers, spinners and net bowlers, led by the ever-willing Navdeep Saini, running on fumes by the end, despite the thick evening humidity. Saini bowled as though auditioning for a recall to the national side; it was his bouncer that left Ishan Kishan wincing towards the end of his batting block, the ball catching him high as he ducked and forcing the physios to check on his back. Ishan Kishan suffered an injury scare in Delhi on Friday (India Today Photo)

Abhishek Sharma, as ever, padded up last and left last. By ten o'clock, Gambhir and batting coach Sitanshu Kotak were still putting him through a stiff short-ball workout, throwing from just short of a length off the pitch.

A great deal happened across an intense evening of training. But the image that will linger is Bumrah's celebrappeal after that edge, and Sooryavanshi, for once, playing the master with genuine respect. He may yet look to return the favour, the next time the IPL comes around.- EndsPublished By: Amar PanickerPublished On: Sep 12, 2026 07:33 IST