Bumrah shoulders heavy load to underscore what India will miss

India will hopefully learn lessons of relentlessness in Test cricket from the experience of this match. By the time they have to play without Jasprit Bumrah, likely the third Test at Lord's, they will hope to put up a much more efficient performance in all three departments of the game. Until then, though, they have Bumrah to keep them alive in matches. Even though they really did test his patience with their catching and the areas that the third and fourth seamers bowled.

Without Bumrah, the mistakes made by India on the last two days - with bat, ball and in the field - would have played them out of the match. It will be a rotten feeling in the change room given Bumrah is not going to be available for all Tests. That shouldn't keep anyone from relishing another masterclass of seam and swing bowling.

Not just in the Indian side, Bumrah was streets ahead of everyone on show in this Test. For somebody who must have a bit of self-preservation on his mind, Bumrah was the sharpest in pace: consistently the fastest bowler on display despite having to bowl slower balls on this relatively unyielding pitch and also among the three fastest deliveries in the first two innings of the match.

At the same time, Bumrah was also the best line-and-length bowler: bowling 53.33% of his deliveries in the 6-8m zone. Nobody else hit the 50% mark. It is as if magically he knows what lengths to bowl. Not that it needs a scientist to tell you that 6-8m is the best length to bowl on most pitches, but more so at Headingley, which is not a hit-the-deck surface.

While we can make it sound simple that Test cricket is all about hitting good lengths at good pace, not everyone can do that so effortlessly. Only Mohammed Siraj and Chris Woakes came close to Bumrah's accuracy in this Test. Neither of them did so immediately. Landing the ball is the basic skill. Moving it is what makes it threatening. The combination produces chances. Bumrah created 44 false shots. Only Siraj did more, but he also bowled more.

Then there is the build-up to wickets because you can't just keep bowling good ball after good ball, especially in what seemed essentially like a 2.5-man attack. More so when you need to watch how much you bowl. The Zak Crawley wicket at the end of the first over of the innings was the most beautiful. That was the widest Bumrah went in that over, about a couple of feet wider than the previous ball, but bowled an outswinger that swung at 2.394 degrees. As it is, Bumrah has the widest average release of the bowlers in this match, which makes you play at more deliveries than you should, but this, released wider, was wicked. On top of the swing, it seamed away 1.583 degrees, making Crawley's closed bat face look silly.

The Ben Duckett played-on was the result of overs and overs of good bowling. It is what Bumrah calls money in the bank for all the good balls that don't go to hand. Like the one he bowled to Ollie Pope early: even more wicked than the one that got Crawley, released from wider, swinging and seaming away, but also kicking at him.

Just before he faced what turned out to be the last ball of his innings, Joe Root asked Pope if the 46-over-old ball was tailing. A little, he was told. Usually such lateral movement is used to swing the ball in. Bumrah flipped the darker side outside, and Root - possibly conscious of the tail - committed to playing it. This ball didn't swing at all, Root had it tracked, but it seamed away half a degree to take the edge.

Mark Wood, whom we would ideally have on the field rather in the media box, just casually dropped a wonderful line on Sky Sports when Bumrah misfielded on day two. "He's human," Wood said. "I knew it." Further signs of being human were on display when he bowled successive no-balls deep into the second day - one of them a wicket - and an indifferent spell with the second new ball.

Bumrah admitted to not being used to bowling up or down the hill. He said that when you are tired, it can push you ahead of yourself. On the third morning, he was mindful to not let that happen. He maintained his pace when running downhill, and bowled no no-ball on day three.

Still, though, Bumrah couldn't avoid fielding errors. In all three catches went down off his bowling. All three batters hurt India. Famously, with the 2019 IPL final on a knife's edge, Bumrah went and consoled Quinton de Kock after he let through four byes off a regulation take. Here, he displayed frustration ever so slightly.

"Yeah, just for a second, but you know, you understand that you can't really sit down and cry," Bumrah said. "You have to move forward with the game. So that's what I look to do. Not to take it too far in my head and try and quickly forget it because all of them are also new to the game, first time over here, sometimes the ball is difficult to sight. And nobody is dropping the catches purposely. Everybody's trying really hard. It does happen. So I don't want to create a scene or put more pressure on the fielder that, you know, I'm angry, I'm kicking the box or I'm doing something."

Scenes can be created with the ball in hand as well. Having bowled just four overs with the second new ball, often slipping down leg, Bumrah came back to end the late charge of Woakes with a full ball. Immediately he dropped back to good length, and bowled Josh Tongue.

Just in the nick of time, Bumrah had completed a five-for to give India a slender lead. It is quite something to announce beforehand that you will be playing only a certain number of matches and then go out and inflict maximum damage in those matches.

Bumrah was asked if it made these three matches more urgent for him. He replied that adding extra importance to these matches would mean extra baggage. "That's very difficult to carry," he said. Given the carry job he has been doing of late, are you sure, Jasprit?