Waqar Younis on Jasprit Bumrah: "He Still Has a Lot to Prove in Tests" — What He Said and What the Numbers Say

By CricketPlaying11 Staff • Oct 30, 2026 • India

Pakistan fast-bowling legend Waqar Younis has called Jasprit Bumrah the best white-ball bowler in the modern game — and in the same breath said the Indian pacer "still has a lot to prove in Tests." The comment, made on the Shubhankar Mishra podcast this week, has split cricket fans down the middle: is it a fair point about workload and longevity, or does Bumrah's record already settle the argument?

What Waqar actually said

Here is the quote, as reported by the Times of India and others:

"There's no modern-day bowler of the same calibre as Bumrah with the white ball. Leave out Test cricket. He still has a lot to prove in Tests; he hasn't played as much. There are plenty of others, like Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood. You can't ignore some of the English bowlers either. But when you talk about T20 and one-day cricket, I feel that in terms of impact, Bumrah always delivers in crunch scenarios. And that's what matters."

Waqar's argument is about volume, not quality. He is not questioning whether Bumrah can bowl in Tests — he is saying Bumrah has not played enough of them to sit alongside the greats. The names he reached for — Starc and Hazlewood — are bowlers who turn up for long Test summers year after year. Bumrah, managed carefully by India to protect his action and his back, has not.

The New York memory

What makes the take sting a little less is that Waqar clearly rates Bumrah enormously. On the same podcast, he recalled the 2024 T20 World Cup game in New York, where India defended just 120 against Pakistan — and Bumrah, with 3 for 14 including the wicket of Mohammad Rizwan, was the difference. Waqar admitted Pakistan "had no business losing" that game, and that Bumrah's spell broke them. Coming from a man whose own team was on the receiving end, that is about as strong a white-ball endorsement as exists.

What the numbers say

Here is the part of the story Waqar's critics keep posting back at him:

A Test bowling average of 19.7 is not just good — it is the best among all modern bowlers with 200-plus Test wickets. Nobody else in the current era is under 20. He was the fastest Indian fast bowler to 50 Test wickets (11 matches, in 2018), to 100 (24 matches), and to 200 (44 matches, beating Kapil Dev's 50). He took a Test hat-trick in 2019, was named the ICC Men's Test Cricketer of the Year for 2024, and finished the 2024-25 Border-Gavaskar Trophy with 32 wickets in five Tests — a record for the series.

The counter to Waqar's volume argument, then, is efficiency: Bumrah has played fewer Tests because India protects him, but almost nobody in history has done more per Test than he has.

Why he has barely played Tests in 2026

One fact that gives Waqar's point some weight: Bumrah is yet to play a Test for India in 2026. Workload management and injury prevention have kept him out of the red-ball side all year, and he is expected to return for the two-match Test series in New Zealand next month, with World Test Championship points on the line. If he plays a full home season and an away tour or two, the "hasn't played as much" line gets harder to sustain.

Our verdict

Waqar is half right. On pure output per match, Bumrah's Test record is already among the greatest ever — 19.7 does not lie. But greatness in Test cricket has always been measured in spells across summers and series, not just averages, and on that count Bumrah's career is still being written. The New Zealand Tests next month are his next chance to add the volume to the brilliance. If he does, even Waqar may have to update the podcast.