Mumbai: Indian pacer Jasprit Bumrah, during an interview recently, recalled a moment of his ‘indecent’ send off after the dismissal of South Africa’s AB de Villiers during an Indian Premier League (IPL) match between Mumbai Indians and Royal Challengers Bangalore in 2014.
Bumrah later confessed that he usually does not sledge players, but admitted that he did all sorts of things that day.
“I usually don’t sledge. I try to do my own business. In IPL, I got AB de Villiers’ wicket and then I went crazy and said all kinds of things but he didn’t see. But he must’ve watched it on TV inside the room,” the 23-year old was quoted saying during ‘What the Duck’ show, on the Viu app. The Indian bowler was later slammed on social media for his actions as matters started to heat up.
“So then after that, I got a lot of spanking and spraying from people that you know ‘what is this?’ ‘you are sledging AB’ ‘he is our God’ ‘who are you?’ ‘first play international cricket’ ‘what do you think of yourself?’. I realised people got very serious about this. I wasn’t even that serious. I anyways don’t do a lot of sledging, so I was calm,” he added.
Bumrah, now a permanent member of Team India’s limited overs side, has been an influential part in the Men in Blue’s pace attack, having taken 59 wickets from 40 limited overs matches (both ODI and T20Is). Bumrah, though, is yet to make his first Test appearance for the side.
