THE BUMRAH PHENOMENON

RISE OF CULTURAL INTERMEDIARIES

The image-making of Jasprit Bumrah over the years has been a curious case. Various intermediaries like public relations, news channels, cricket critics have participated in this. They produce and circulate symbolic goods and services while regulating taste-making and “appropriateness” in the cultural economy. This essay shall read the cultural intermediaries constructing Bumrah as a celebrity body.

Bumrah’s wicket on a no-ball to Fakhar Zaman in the Champion’s Trophy final, 2017, led to India’s defeat as Zaman went on to score a century. Jaipur traffic police employed this “infamous” incident to warn the automobile users against crossing the zebra-crossing line as “it can be costly.”

Jokes and memes on social media advocated the same. Whether conscious or unconscious, these intermediaries participated in symbolic production and commodified Bumrah’s flaw and imperfection.

However, in recent times, the advertisement and the PR have advocated Bumrah as an ‘icon’ and attempted to locate desirable markers in him. During the 2019 World Cup, the ICC officially shot and posted a video that projected Bumrah as “the inspiration at home.” It constructed Bumrah as a celebrity body in whom upcoming fast bowlers from India should locate a sense of identity.

Dream 11, a fantasy sports platform, released a video titled “Tale of the yorker specialist” where ‘the’ definitely presents Bumrah as the only yorker specialist. This is an attempt at creating an image for one celebrity while concealing other bowlers like Joel Garner, Waqar Younis, Lasith Malinga, who primarily bowled yorkers.

Bumrah’s unorthodox action as a fast bowler was initially debated. In 2019, an aerospace engineering professor from IIT Kanpur “scientifically” explained the effectiveness of his bowling action through the reverse Magnus effect. This “science” was heavily reported and advocated by the media, and soon the cricket world started recognising him as one of the most “technical” bowlers.

One instance of the commodification of this value would be an advertisement on mutual funds where he compares his understanding and wicket of every batter with direct plans in mutual funds. Now that he is “technical” in mass perception, he can be cast in the images that demand technicality.

Cultural intermediaries function on the mechanism of inclusion and exclusion, knowledge revealing and knowledge concealing, respectively. In a recent #palatde campaign by ThumbsUp, the advertisement showed Bumrah’s childhood coach complaining that his short run-up could stop him from being a fast bowler. While it constructed Bumrah as a person of sheer willpower, it also showed him consuming a soft drink. However, the latter was disguised under the values Bumrah’s image brought. Similarly, Dream 11 started a #dreambig campaign where it romanticised his struggles and denied the ground reality while transmitting the cultural value that “one has to struggle if one dreams big”.

Thus, while Bumrah carries flaws like being prone to injury and fatal mistakes like throwing no-balls on crucial occasions, the mass also monitors him for his technicality, willpower, and integrity.

As a celebrity body, his image has evolved because of the cultural intermediaries associating cultural meanings and values to his personality and skills.

Aditya Kaushik is the editor at 'The Pigeon', making sure that the website runs like a well oiled machine. Aditya also writes about sport an area of keen interest to him.