New Delhi: India's frontline seamer Jasprit Bumrah who has gone onto become one of the most feared fast bowlers in all forms of international cricket on the back of his bowling heroics revealed on Sunday that many critics and the sports fraternity at large thought that he would be the "last person to play for India".
However, it was India's World Cup winning hero Yuvraj Singh who backed Bumrah's rather unorthodox and unique bowling style and told him that he would reach the very pinnacle of T20 cricket.
The Indian pacer made this revelation during a live session on Instagram with former India batsman Yuvraj Singh.
"Many people told me that I won't play for long, there was an expectation that the last person to play for the country would be me," said Bumrah when Yuvraj asked him about his unusual bowling action.
During the chat, Yuvraj reminded Bumrah that he had predicted that the pacer would go on to become the "number one bowler in the world". And he did in 2017 when he reached the spot in the T20 rankings.
"They told me that I would just play the Ranji Trophy. But I kept on improving and I persisted with my action," said the 26-year-old, who made his India debut in January 2016 following his exploits in the IPL.
Bumrah has gone to play 64 ODIs, 50 T20s and 14 Tests. He made his Test debut in January 2018 and in quick time, he became Virat Kohli's go to bowler even in the five-day format.