Jasprit Bumrah the new face of swing.

Bumrah hat-trick victims, like several other batsmen, were aware of the impending danger, but seemed powerless to prevent it. Among modern-age bowlers, no one perfected the art of taking hat-tricks like Wasim Akram — the Pakistani maestro nabbed four, two apiece in Tests and ODIs. Nine of the 12 victims were blasted out in a predictably Akram-esque manner. Bowled. Six of them perished to his signature in-swingers, ripping, devilishly late-swerving yorkers, beating batsmen by both pace and movement. Almost frighteningly predictable. The faces of befuddled batsmen tell a story — they knew the unpreventable eventuality. It’s not that they weren’t aware of the most shining weapon in Akram’s armoury, but it was irresistibly unpreventable. Like death and taxes in life, or the hurricanes in the Caribbean Sea. Like it’s with Jasprit Bumrah these days. In these technologically-intoxicated days, it’s not difficult to gather data, dissect and dissemble a bowler, strip him to his elements, however unique or skilled he is, and devise counter-measures. Even before you’re in the middle, you can visualise and draw trajectories of the delivery in your mind, condition your reflexes, toughen your mind and bound into the middle. Soon, there could be batting cages that can simulate the actual game scenario. But there’s only so much technology, or for that matter gathered wisdom or human will, that can help you against great bowlers when you’re facing them out in the middle. It’s their predictability that makes them more indecipherable, that infuses a mortal dread, that makes batsmen helpless. Bumrah took six wickets in the first innings as India bowled out the West Indies for 117 to take a 299-run lead. His 6-27 included a hat-trick, only the third by an Indian in Test cricket (after Harbhajan Singh in 2001 and Irfan Pathan in 2006).Read more.Bumrah hat-trick victims, like several other batsmen, were aware of the impending danger, but seemed powerless to prevent it. Among modern-age bowlers, no one perfected the art of taking hat-tricks like Wasim Akram — the Pakistani maestro nabbed four, two apiece in Tests and ODIs. Nine of the 12 victims were blasted out in a predictably Akram-esque manner. Bowled. Six of them perished to his signature in-swingers, ripping, devilishly late-swerving yorkers, beating batsmen by both pace and movement. Almost frighteningly predictable. The faces of befuddled batsmen tell a story — they knew the unpreventable eventuality. It’s not that they weren’t aware of the most shining weapon in Akram’s armoury, but it was irresistibly unpreventable. Like death and taxes in life, or the hurricanes in the Caribbean Sea. Like it’s with Jasprit Bumrah these days. In these technologically-intoxicated days, it’s not difficult to gather data, dissect and dissemble a bowler, strip him to his elements, however unique or skilled he is, and devise counter-measures. Even before you’re in the middle, you can visualise and draw trajectories of the delivery in your mind, condition your reflexes, toughen your mind and bound into the middle. Soon, there could be batting cages that can simulate the actual game scenario. But there’s only so much technology, or for that matter gathered wisdom or human will, that can help you against great bowlers when you’re facing them out in the middle. It’s their predictability that makes them more indecipherable, that infuses a mortal dread, that makes batsmen helpless. Bumrah took six wickets in the first innings as India bowled out the West Indies for 117 to take a 299-run lead. His 6-27 included a hat-trick, only the third by an Indian in Test cricket (after Harbhajan Singh in 2001 and Irfan Pathan in 2006).Read more .