Jasprit Bumrah has been named the ICC men’s Test cricketer of the Year for 2024.
The ICC has named Bumrah as the Test Cricketer of the Year for his performance in 2024. From 13 Tests, Bumrah had taken 71 wickets in the year at 14.92 and a strike rate of 30.1.
Of bowlers with as many Test wickets in any calendar year, no one else has an average below 16 or a strike rate better than 39. Bumrah in 2024 was, thus, a year without parallel in Test cricket – and perhaps even across formats. Over the course of the year, he also became the first bowler to reach 200 Test wickets while maintaining an average below 20.
Bumrah's series-wise performance in Tests in 2024
Bumrah began the year with the second Test of the two-match series, at Cape Town, where he picked up 2-25 and 6-61 to help India leave the South African shores without having lost the series for only the second time in history.
Back home, he got 19 wickets from four Tests at 16.89 against England, where his most devastating performance – 6-45 and 3-46 – came in a win at Visakhapatnam. It was during this Test that he bowled his famous yorker to clean up Ollie Pope.
There was no Test cricket for India between mid-March and mid-September. They resumed with five home games. Bumrah’s two Tests against Bangladesh fetched him 11 wickets at 12.81, but the two against New Zealand got him only three more, at 42.33.
However, he saved his best for the last, on the tour of Australia. There, he had 30 wickets at 12.83 in the first four Tests (the fifth took his tally to 32 at 13.06, but it began in 2025, outside the eligibility range of the award). This included 5-30 and 3-42 at Perth, a Test where he led India to a win after they were bowled out for 150, and nine-wicket match hauls in consecutive Test matches at Brisbane and Melbourne.
