"Panicking...": Jasprit Bumrah's Viral 'Calm Down' Gesture At Mahela Jayawardene In IPL 2025 Eliminator Decoded

Jasprit Bumrah turned out to be Mumbai Indians' saviour in the IPL 2025 Eliminator against Gujarat Titans on Friday. Bumrah took just one wicket but it was a crucial one of Washington Sundar (48, 24b), who stitched an important stand with Sai Sudharshan (80, 49b). Post that dismissal, GT fell short of the 229-run target by 20 runs. During that match, an interaction between MI coach Mahela Jayawardene and Bumrah went viral. However, Bumrah gestured towards him to calm down and take it easy before doing the same gesture to captain Hardik Pandya.

Jatin Sapru who was on the Hindi broadcast at that time, said, "Bumrah is basically saying 'I know my job well. I am here. You stay calm and just give me a chance."

Former RCB and India pacer Varun Aaron said Jaywardene was 'panicking' because the MI bowlers were getting hit by GT batters.

"If you want wickets, he comes and gets you wickets. If you want to stop runs, he stops runs for you. Man, what a bowler," Aaron said on ESPNcricinfo's Time Out. 

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"And the belief he has in his ability. You have an international coach [Mahela Jayawardene] who is obviously panicking because his bowlers have suddenly started to go to the cleaners, and he just turns around and is like 'just calm down, I'll do the job for you'. Comes in, runs in, gets hit for a six and then gets that ball."

Tom Moody, who is an IPL-winning coach, called Bumrah pure class.

"The challenge every opposition has to Mumbai Indians, and Jasprit Bumrah more importantly, is that the 24 balls he bowls are such a threat," Moody said. "It's not impossible but it's so difficult to get big overs against him. So you're really playing 20 overs versus 16 to a certain extent. And he is so far ahead of the rest, it's ridiculous.

"The thing with Bumrah is that he's got that genuine wicket-taking ability just through his pure class. That yorker he bowled to Washington Sundar, you just don't bowl a better ball than that. That is the absolute perfect leg-stump yorker that's gone between his legs. At pace. To a batter that's in. Set.

"You see that quite often with a new batter because they still haven't picked up the pace of the game. This is a batter that's in and he's going at 200 strike rate. It just totally blew him away."

Topics mentioned in this article

Mumbai Indians Gujarat Titans Jasprit Bumrah Mahela Jayawardene IPL 2025 Cricket