Swing + seam + Bumrah's lengths = unplayable

Tim Seifert was helpless. Jasprit Bumrah has all the skills and variations that make batters feel that way, but he never goes searching for the magic ball.

The magic lies in his simplicity and execution. Bumrah's magic and some magic off the Guwahati pitch came together to produce Seifert's dismissal in the third T20I between India and New Zealand.

Bumrah put his first ball, in the final over of the powerplay, on a perfect, in-between length - neither driveable nor pullable - which left even a 360-degree batter like Seifert short of options and rooted to the crease. It was angled in from over the wicket and swung into Seifert. To the batter's credit, he shaped to cover for the inswing despite the lack of footwork, but the ball suddenly decked away off the pitch and sent his off stump cartwheeling.

In front of it, Bumrah wheeled away, revelling in his laser-guided accuracy and execution. Around the same time, the host broadcaster put up a graphic, which indicated that the ball had swung in 0.3 degrees and seamed away 0.8 degrees. Swing + seam + Bumrah's lengths = unplayable.

When Harshit Rana and Hardik Pandya tried to swing the new ball in the early exchanges, they ended up bowling on the fuller side of a good length, and were driven or chipped away over the infield for fours. Bumrah sussed out the conditions so quickly that his first ball was on the money. New Zealand never recovered from 36 for 3 in the powerplay, and India pressed on to seal the series 3-0, with two games to go.

"Yeah, I was keeping an eye on when Harshit and Hardik bowled what is the best option over here [on this pitch]," Bumrah said at the post-match presentation after winning the Player-of-the-Match award. "Obviously, when I came, the ball had become a little scuffed up. So, usually the white ball doesn't swing for long. So it was about my best option, and I tried to do that."

Bumrah didn't veer away from his best option, which was to bang it away on a good length or short of it until the end overs, when he dipped into his bag of tricks. According to ESPNcricinfo's logs, 16 of his 24 balls were on that good length or short of it. It brought him two wickets, and the resultant pressure created wicket-taking opportunities at the other end too.

Just like that, Bumrah turned the match into 20 overs vs 16. When Varun Chakravarthy is on song, Bumrah and Varun can turn a match into 20 overs vs 12. The presence of Hardik and Rana, who can also bowl across phases, affords India to use Bumrah however they want to. In the Asia Cup last year, they frontloaded Bumrah in the powerplay when the team management preferred to play just one specialist fast bowler in spin-friendly conditions in the UAE. India now have the option of holding Bumrah back for the death.

"I'm happy [to do any role] as far as I'm able to contribute," Bumrah said. "So if the team wants me to bowl with the new ball, I'm more than happy. If they want me to bowl in the end, I'm happy to do that. I did that in the Asia Cup as well. That was a new role for me. I've never done that before for too long - bowling three overs [in the powerplay]. But as a team, we have to be flexible. So I'm flexible as well."

While India's turbo-charged batting continues to break records and leave jaws on the floor, it is their Bumrah-led bowling attack that could bring them back-to-back T20 World Cup titles.