RABADA VS BUMRAH

[putrevus]

Bumrah lacks support in tests that will hurt him a lot.2024 is the year Bumrah has turned the corner, he has become ATG bowler.He still does not have a 10 wk haul in tests.He sure will end up with least test wickets among the three ATG test bowlers.

 

I would still rate Bumrah the best as he comes from a country where fast bowling is not natural .But Bumrah has not shown up in big matches  before this year that will always be part of his legacy if he does not get a chance to correct it.

 

Rabada in tests has done very well in tests.He has showed up in big finals too.Other formats he is not that good.

 

Cummins on other hand has most support  with both batting and bowling.But he has done very well in big matches too.He is the one in the group who never gives up.He is like a bull dog, you have to get on top of him plus  he will run in all day in any format.

[Gollum]

3 hours ago, raki05 said:

I agree to this mostly. Rabada has bigger sample size in test with very good avg also has a silverware now but bumrah is not far behind and has an stunning avg of 19.70 if he wins anicc test championship he will be in the list of goat bowler.

Fitness permitting, Bumrah can leapfrog Rabada in next cycle. Both are at the same level in tests, 19-20 ka farak hai.

 

All formats combined, none of these guys can surpass Bumrah. 

[vvvslaxman]

34 minutes ago, Gollum said:

Fitness permitting, Bumrah can leapfrog Rabada in next cycle. Both are at the same level in tests, 19-20 ka farak hai.

 

All formats combined, none of these guys can surpass Bumrah. 

Bumrah is literally go to bowler in all formats. May be in ODIs Shami is a legend in his own right with unmatchable world cup records.

[Adamant]

23 hours ago, Serpico said:

2027 world cup will be the ultimate battle between Rabada, Bumrah and Cummins. Both Starc and Hazelwood will retire by then or will be quite old. Rabada will have better support bowlers and home advantage. If Bumrah can still outbowl him and win the cup, we can say he's the better bowler in LOIs

In odis the gap is even wider.

 

Rabada is not even a great ODI bowler, I will take Morne Morkel over him. Cummins is also not a great Odi bowler, both Starc and Hazlewood are better odi bowlers.

 

In t20s again there is no debate, Cummins and Rabada are average.

[crictime]

In tests:

 

Kagiso Rabada: 336 wickets at sr 38.9 avg 21.76

 

Jasprit Bumrah: 205 wickets at sr 42 avg 19.4

[crictime]

In ODIs:

 

Kagiso Rabada: 167 wickets at sr 31.4 avg 27.45 eco 5.08

 

Jasprit Bumrah: 149 wickets at sr 30.7 avg 23.55 eco 4.59

[Majestic]

There is no thing like one is better. You can make a case for either.

 

Bumrah maybe having more all round effectiveness but he lacks longevity and fitness.

 

Suppose they both play for same teams and that team plays 10 games in a year. Bumrah will likely be available for only 6 tests while Rabada will be available for 9 tests.

 

Bumrah will win you 3 out of 6 tests. Rabada will win you 4 out of 9 tests. Percentage is low for Rabada but at the end of the year, Rabada wins his team 4 games and Bumrah wins only 3.

Bumrah not being capable of bowling day in and day out goes against him because when you put him in 80s and 90s era, he would have to bowl longer spells as test match will last 5 days fully and many drawn games unlike today where it finishes in 3 or 4 days most of the times.

[Majestic]

From 01 Jan 2018,

 

test matches played :-

 

India - 70

Australia - 67

South Africa - 55

 

Bumrah - 45(64%)

Cummins - 59( 88%)

Rabada - 48(87%)

 

This is where Bumrah falls behind when compared with Cummins and Rabada. He has more effectiveness than both but he will be available for 6.5 tests in a year on average while the other two will be available for 9 tests in a year on average.

[Gollum]

At this rate, even if accounting for decline, Rabada is going to get 500 test wickets at worst case 23-24 average and SR in low 40s. Right now his SR is 38.9, which is mind boggingly good, Shane Bond like but with 4 times the number of tests played, including all across the world.....Bond wasn't as well tested in alien conditions.  

 

Statistically, Rabada is a superior version of Steyn though not as well rounded for all conditions. Elite matchwinner when conditions are slightly in his favor, and that is a great trait to have....17 5wk and 4 10 wk hauls puts him in some great company. He sometimes reminds me of Ambrose despite being much shorter in height, the way he pounds the ball at that uncomfortable length. 

[Gollum]

Bumrah is best among them in flat conditions. Cummins is more like the modern Lillee with 90% of his wickets in Aus and Eng, in fact he has much more to prove than Rabada to be called an all conditions bowler....latter has done better in non-SENA conditions like SL/BD/WI, Cummins nothing of that sort. 

 

Rabada is the most lethal on bowling friendly pitches, not as good as Bumrah on absolute pancakes. But even that is a skill, Rabada in place of Bumrah would have won us the 2021 WTC F and 2020 series in NZ on spicy pitches....being ruthless when conditions are in your favor too is a difficult skill, because it is then a high stakes game with razor thin margins. Rabda wouldn't have made an impact like Bumrah in 2024 series vs Eng on placid Indian tracks, that much also I am sure. 

 

@Serpico made a great analogy about Rabada being like the pace version of Ashwin. I think he will go a step further and prove himself in India/Pak as well. 

[rkt.india]

11 hours ago, Majestic said:

From 01 Jan 2018,

 

test matches played :-

 

India - 70

Australia - 67

South Africa - 55

 

Bumrah - 45(64%)

Cummins - 59( 88%)

Rabada - 48(87%)

 

This is where Bumrah falls behind when compared with Cummins and Rabada. He has more effectiveness than both but he will be available for 6.5 tests in a year on average while the other two will be available for 9 tests in a year on average.

There is a catch here. Aus and SA play on fast bowling friendly pitches at home so Rabada and Cummins plays most of those tests. While this is not the case in India where spin rules. Bumrah has not been injured in all of those tests but he was not played intentionally to keep him fresh for away tests.

[singhvivek141]

12 hours ago, Majestic said:

From 01 Jan 2018,

 

test matches played :-

 

India - 70

Australia - 67

South Africa - 55

 

Bumrah - 45(64%)

Cummins - 59( 88%)

Rabada - 48(87%)

 

This is where Bumrah falls behind when compared with Cummins and Rabada. He has more effectiveness than both but he will be available for 6.5 tests in a year on average while the other two will be available for 9 tests in a year on average.

We had options till 2020-21, so Bumrah wasnt exclusively used.
Umesh was good for home conditions, Shami was handy, Ishant was a steady operator...Bumrah wasn't the same Bumrah till 2020-21.
it's from 22 onwards, when Umesh, Ishant became redundant...Bumrah became the leader of the pace attack and just took off.

[Majestic]

23 hours ago, singhvivek141 said:

We had options till 2020-21, so Bumrah wasnt exclusively used.
Umesh was good for home conditions, Shami was handy, Ishant was a steady operator...Bumrah wasn't the same Bumrah till 2020-21.
it's from 22 onwards, when Umesh, Ishant became redundant...Bumrah became the leader of the pace attack and just took off.

Bumrah had an injury in 2019 which is why they didn’t played him in the home series vs SA. Yes, he wasn’t needed there but I remember the 2020 tour to NZ was when Bumrah had just recovered from injury. Bumrah not playing then was also part of workload management.

[Majestic]

On 6/16/2025 at 9:55 AM, rkt.india said:

There is a catch here. Aus and SA play on fast bowling friendly pitches at home so Rabada and Cummins plays most of those tests. While this is not the case in India where spin rules. Bumrah has not been injured in all of those tests but he was not played intentionally to keep him fresh for away tests.

He had two serious injuries.

 

First in 2019 that kept him away from home series vs SA and secondly in 2022-23 that kept him away from home series vs Aus and a WTC Final.

 

Outside those two injuries, he missed the Brisbane 2020 test, skipped a few tests vs England at home, skipped a test in 2021 tour of England and was injured in the Sydney test 2025. So, all in all, Rohit Sharma and co have done really well to keep Bumrah’s workload in check by not letting him grind out at home tests.

[StraightDrive26]

23 hours ago, singhvivek141 said:

We had options till 2020-21, so Bumrah wasnt exclusively used.
Umesh was good for home conditions, Shami was handy, Ishant was a steady operator...Bumrah wasn't the same Bumrah till 2020-21.
it's from 22 onwards, when Umesh, Ishant became redundant...Bumrah became the leader of the pace attack and just took off.

Bumrah wasn't the same bower in 2020/21, when he came back from injury he was struggling to pick wickets in ODIs as well. The struggle in 2021 WTC final was that. I don't think the Bumrah we have right now would have struggled so much in helpful conditions. India as a team never performed in both the WTC finals. Hard to blame Bumrah for the losses and credit Rabada for the win as if he won the game. 282 was a tough chase and the pitch flattened out and the weather cleared and SA batted very well to chase that against a good bowling unit. It does not matter how many wickets your bowlers are able to take, if the batting fails like how it does for India time and again, we cannot win games even if Bumrah takes 20 wickets in a single game. 

 

For the umpteenth time, cricket is a team game, a single player does not win anything, this is not grand slam Tennis. You play as a team, win as a team. Single player might contribute a lot but without at least few others supporting it will not mean anything. I will rate Aiden Markhram hundred higher than what Rabada achieved. Despite the 9 wickets from Rabada, Australia still were ahead 90 percent of the game, only the last innings when SA batted brilliantly although in good batting conditions, is what tilted the balance. If the conditions had remained the same those 9 wickets by Rabada would not have meant anything as Cummins, Hazlewood and Starc would have bowled SA out under 200 in the 4th as well. So stop bringing some unnecessary metric to bring down a bowler. This was done for years to downplay Sachin and now it is being done for Bumrah. If your overall team is crap, you can have an Andy Flower, Brian Lara (WI won only 32 of 131 Tests) or Richard Hadlee (NZ won only 22 of 86 Tests), you will not be winning much. Even though Brian and Hadlee had stellar careers and did well against the best of their time, their teams still could not win much. You cannot blame them for that, it is how bad their teams were. So without Aiden Markhram, Rabada's 9 wicket haul would have been nothing and vice versa. This is why it is called a team game. I would guarantee that even with Bumrah picking up 9 wickets in 2021, India would have lost the game because of the horrible batting performance in both the innings. Toss seems crucial in England these days as well, starting day 3 the pitches seem to completely turn flat. England built their bazball game by chasing improbable totals in the 4th innings. They did the same against India in the one off Test, Got bowled out under 300 in the first but did not break a sweat chasing 380 in the 4th. Cricket used to be other way around and still is in all other countries, except for SA and England. 

[raki05]

On 6/17/2025 at 10:52 AM, StraightDrive26 said:

Bumrah wasn't the same bower in 2020/21, when he came back from injury he was struggling to pick wickets in ODIs as well. The struggle in 2021 WTC final was that. I don't think the Bumrah we have right now would have struggled so much in helpful conditions. India as a team never performed in both the WTC finals. Hard to blame Bumrah for the losses and credit Rabada for the win as if he won the game. 282 was a tough chase and the pitch flattened out and the weather cleared and SA batted very well to chase that against a good bowling unit. It does not matter how many wickets your bowlers are able to take, if the batting fails like how it does for India time and again, we cannot win games even if Bumrah takes 20 wickets in a single game. 

 

For the umpteenth time, cricket is a team game, a single player does not win anything, this is not grand slam Tennis. You play as a team, win as a team. Single player might contribute a lot but without at least few others supporting it will not mean anything. I will rate Aiden Markhram hundred higher than what Rabada achieved. Despite the 9 wickets from Rabada, Australia still were ahead 90 percent of the game, only the last innings when SA batted brilliantly although in good batting conditions, is what tilted the balance. If the conditions had remained the same those 9 wickets by Rabada would not have meant anything as Cummins, Hazlewood and Starc would have bowled SA out under 200 in the 4th as well. So stop bringing some unnecessary metric to bring down a bowler. This was done for years to downplay Sachin and now it is being done for Bumrah. If your overall team is crap, you can have an Andy Flower, Brian Lara (WI won only 32 of 131 Tests) or Richard Hadlee (NZ won only 22 of 86 Tests), you will not be winning much. Even though Brian and Hadlee had stellar careers and did well against the best of their time, their teams still could not win much. You cannot blame them for that, it is how bad their teams were. So without Aiden Markhram, Rabada's 9 wicket haul would have been nothing and vice versa. This is why it is called a team game. I would guarantee that even with Bumrah picking up 9 wickets in 2021, India would have lost the game because of the horrible batting performance in both the innings. Toss seems crucial in England these days as well, starting day 3 the pitches seem to completely turn flat. England built their bazball game by chasing improbable totals in the 4th innings. They did the same against India in the one off Test, Got bowled out under 300 in the first but did not break a sweat chasing 380 in the 4th. Cricket used to be other way around and still is in all other countries, except for SA and England. 

It happened many a time during bgt where Bumrah took 7-8 wkt hall and india still lost. Because other bowlers were crap and batting was anyway crap.

[putrevus]

Bumrah does not  get a pass for all the stinkers he has put up in big matches.He was horrible even in world cup semifinals in 2023.It takes one ball for any batsmen to get out.Bowlers have lot more to leave their mark.

 

He was horrible in the test finals in 2021 when he had best conditions.  it looks like only in 2024 Bumrah has turned the corner that is after 8 years of playing international cricket.When he was needed the most he came up short.

 

Edited June 18, 2025 by putrevus

[Chaos]

Bumrah in tests, odis, t20s, pajama cricket, gully cricket, or any type of cricket. He is an ATG, one of the best ever seen. The way he blew aussies out last series is testiment of that. Rabada is good but his body language is soo pathetic, no expressions no feelings, no laughing. Just bowls like a machine. Atleast laugh once in a while man, also klassen