How to counter Bumrah? Academics could be given a lifetime to think and come up with little more than to stand at the other end. McCullum, England's head coach, offered a shrug and an "I don't know".
In just eight days of England vs. India cricket, even 15 wickets at 10.16 do not do justice to some of the spells and dismissals within those spells. Bumrah has gone through his bag of tricks to make the batsmen look silly, to give Mark Wood a complex in the first Test about not being able to match his impact as the key fast bowler, and to eclipse the class of James Anderson with a match-winning 9 for 91 in the second Test.
The red zone in terms of threat to the English batsmen tends to start around the 20-40 mark of the innings, when the ball starts to turn and Bumrah comes into his own. They escaped with a double whammy in the second innings in Hyderabad thanks to Ollie Pope, but suffered a severe sting in Vizag - their bowels were torn out in the first innings before timely hits in pursuit of 399 gave India a satisfactory chase.Joe Root is one player who has tried to counter Bumrah in recent years. Two of Root's four wickets have come to a familiar foe, taking his tally between the two to eight - three more than any other bowler.
Great bowlers bowl at great batsmen, and these two have been opponents on 12 occasions. But Root's average against his stuttering, thunderbolt-wielding nemesis is down to 30.62, suggesting that the bowler has had it most of the way.