Jasprit Bumrah has edged out Joe Root, Harry Brook, and Kamindu Mendis to be named the ICC Test Cricketer of the Year award for 2024. He becomes the first Indian fast bowler to get the accolade and the first from the nation since Virat Kohli (2018). Everything that Bumrah touched turned into gold. He singlehandedly kept the Indian cricket team in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, and if he hadn’t been injured, he could have tied the series on his own.
Jasprit Bumrah crowned ICC Test Cricketer of the Year for 2024
Bumrah took 19 wickets more than the next highest wicket-taker (Gus Atkinson at 52 wickets). His average was under 15; no other bowlers with more than 35 wickets averaged under 18. The same goes for his strike rate. He claimed a wicket every 30 balls, which was bettered by just Marco Jansen, who got just 22 wickets and played just 9 matches compared to Bumrah’s 13.
Bumrah was also rightly named in the ICC Test and T20I teams of the year. And while he was unplayable in T20 cricket, nobody came close to him in red-ball cricket. Every time he came to the crease, you felt a wicket would fall. He stood between defeat and victory for Team India time and again.
It seems far away now, but he was untouchable against England earlier in the year. That ball to Ollie Pope is etched in everyone’s brain. So I think it’s too early to say, but Bumrah might have already been the greatest fast bowler India has ever produced in Test cricket, and now that he’s taken 200 wickets and has the lowest average of anyone with that number of scalps. All batters bow down to Bumrah, and so has the ICC.
Indians to win ICC Test Cricketer Of The Year award since 2004
- Jasprit Bumrah (2024)
Virat Kohli (2018)
Ravichandran Ashwin (2016)
Virender Sehwag (2010)
Gautam Gambhir (2009)
Rahul Dravid (2004)
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