Captivating Cape Town spell exemplifies Jasprit Bumrah's juggernaut

As the ball took the edge off Keshav Maharaj's bat and landed safely in the hands of Shreyas Iyer in the slip cordon, a relieved Jasprit Bumrah raised his arms in celebration. The much-needed relief came on the back of all the hard work that he had put in to come back from a career-threatening injury.

While the wicket completed Jasprit Bumrah's third five-wicket haul on South African soil, it was also an affirmation of why he was up there among the best fast bowlers to have played the game. The career of a once young, lanky pacer who had bowled his first ball in Test cricket on the same ground, had come full circle.

Jasrit Bumrah already seemed emotional at the prospect of returning to where it all began for him with the red ball with a touching caption on Instagram. His teammate Suryakumar Yadav had left a prediction in the comments, "Panja hai idhar pakka (there's a five-wicket haul coming here for sure)" and Bumrah obliged in his emphatic fashion.

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Jasprit Bumrah: cometh the hour cometh the man

South Africa had made their intentions pretty clear about how they were going to approach their second innings on day two. Bumrah erred in length just a bit and David Bedingham went for a cold-blooded hoik over mid-wicket, only to get a top edge over the slip cordon for a boundary.

What separates world-class bowlers from the rest is their ability to keep things simple even when things are going south and adapt to the conditions almost immediately. Right from the next ball, Bumrah bowled a bit fuller, sucking Bendingham into playing a loose drive away from his body and getting the batter caught behind.

Having not quite hit the stripes late on day one despite picking up a wicket, it was important for both Jasprit Bumrah and India to start the second day with a bang and that was exactly what the speedster produced. Greatness is not in trying fancy things. It is just doing the simple things consistently and being patient enough for those efforts to bear fruit. This is exactly how Bumrah affected the dismissal of Kyle Verreynne.

Itching to get out of jail with a dodgy defensive technique, Verreynne tended to throw his bat at deliveries without quite covering the line of it. He was already lucky as an inside edge went to the boundary. But Jasprit Bumrah knew that all he had to do was keep hitting the right length and remain patient. That paid dividends as Verreynne ran out of patience and lobbed one straight into the hands of Mohammed Siraj at mid-on.

Marco Jansen and Jasprit Bumrah had shared a heated exchange on India's previous tour to South Africa and tempers were naturally simmering underneath the surface at Newlands. Jansen looked to keep scoring as South Africa would have gleefully accepted whatever runs came their way, even if in the form of two streaky boundaries.

But once again, it was a fuller delivery from Jasprit Bumrah that sucked another batter into a drive. This time it was Jansen who tried to hit it straight down the ground, with the bowler completing a brilliant reflex catch. Bumrah was pumped up and so was captain Rohit Sharma in the background, as a visibly shocked Jansen had to walk back to the pavilion.

It was a huge relief for the visitors as the last recognized batting pair could have added precious runs for South Africa. Of course, it had to be Bumrah to step up and stop that from happening. The hosts scored 66 runs in the first hour of play, but the four wickets from Bumrah put the visitors in the ascendancy.

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Bumrah seemed to be bowling on a different pitch

Aiden Markram realized he was running out of partners and had to tee off from one end. Mohammed Siraj was bowling from the Kelvin Grove end but didn't look comfortable as Bumrah was bowling from his preferred end.

Markram took full toll of the lack of rhythm from Siraj, collecting 11 runs from an over including two boundaries. The onslaught from Markram could have ended had KL Rahul completed a straightforward catch. The bowler? Of course Bumrah.

Indian captain Rohit Sharma then brought Prasidh Krishna from the other end and that lit up Markram's eyes as he smashed him for two fours and two sixes. It was a brilliant hundred from the South African batter, but his innings was cut short with a miscue that was caught by Rohit coming in from long on.

Once again it was the crucial wickets from Jasprit Bumrah that made Markram play in a high-risk high-reward fashion. If either Jansen or Maharaj were available at the other end, Markram would have likely not played a slog across the line.

The partnership for the final wicket was getting a bit frustrating, but Rohit quickly turned to Bumrah. And it took just five deliveries for the pacer to suck yet another batter into a drive, with Lungi Ngidi only managing to edge it to Jaiswal in the slips.

Siraj and others lacked the control and consistency with which Bumrah was hitting his lengths, a replay of what happened during the entirety of India's bowling innings at Centurion.

Thankfully for India, Siraj's exploits in the first innings and a couple of late blows from Mukesh Kumar on day one ensured that it wasn't another case of 'Bumrah or nothing' from the bowling.

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The great Sachin Tendulkar often reminisced how his late father taught him the importance of humility and being a good person. This is one of the main reasons why the legendary batter continues to be remembered as a humble person on top of all his major achievements.

A tinge of this humility was seen in Jasprit Bumrah during the post-match presentation as he translated Mohammed Siraj's comments into English. As Siraj heaped praise on how easy Bumrah made bowling look, the star speedster cheekily edited out the praise for himself in the translation.

With all that Bumrah has achieved in his career so far, it is apparent that he understands well how nothing comes without hard work and the need to focus on the process irrespective of the result.

Who knows the importance of hard work better than the man who waited for almost 17 months before returning to the Test arena in South Africa and immediately had to take over as the talisman, bowling like he never left?

It is six years to the day that Jasprit Bumrah first began his Test journey. After 140 wickets and nine five-wicket hauls, it is safe to say that the once lanky pacer from Gujarat, who dreamt of playing Test cricket, has made himself immortal in Indian cricketing folklore.