When Adam Gilchrist—a man who’s seen the best of bowlers and batted against them—compares Jasprit Bumrah to Sir Don Bradman, it demands attention. The Australian legend’s assertion that Bumrah is “so far ahead” of his peers sounds similar to what cricketing fanatics say about Bradman when it was his era.
Even injury has derailed Bumrah’s class
In IPL 2025, Bumrah is rewriting the standards of fast bowling yet again. His economy rate of 6.96, in a format known to devour bowlers, is almost unthinkable. Teams have resorted to survival strategies against him, often content with dot balls rather than risk losing wickets. Bumrah, meanwhile, continues to quietly choke lineups—averaging nearly 10 dot balls per game.
Remember how batting-dominated the IPL 2024 was? The average run rate per over last season was a whopping 9.42. And what was Bumrah’s economy then? A mere 6.48, his career-best so far in an IPL season.
Since returning from a back injury that sidelined him for four matches, Bumrah has led Mumbai Indians to six wins in seven outings. His spell against LSG and RR—six wickets for just 37 runs in eight overs—was vintage Bumrah: surgical, smart, and suffocating.
“Bumrah the Bradman of bowling”
Adam Gilchrist didn’t mince words when he placed Bumrah in a league of his own:
“He’s maybe the best bowler, fast bowler of all time. When you start stacking up the statistics and the varying conditions that he has to go out and execute those skills in, I guess you look at Sir Donald Bradman’s numbers compared to his peers and he’s just so far ahead, so I think Bumrah is sort of in that category across all the different variations that you get in conditions and pitches that you’ve got to bowl on. He’s significantly further ahead than the peers around him, so that tells you we are truly watching greatness,” the former Punjab Kings’ captain said on Cricbuzz.
He continued, reflecting on Bumrah’s dominance in the recent Border-Gavaskar Trophy:
“A seamer from India, consistently throughout, particularly the series that we just saw in the summer, back home in the Australian summer, no, I don’t think so. We just sat and watched in awe at close range commentating on that series and again, I know it’s a different format, but he is the best all-format bowler; that’s nothing to argue there.”
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