Cricket | Don’t pick on Jasprit Bumrah – Why pacer’s body can’t fight every battle | Cricket News

Aspersions have been cast on one of the greatest all-format bowlers for not playing the full series in England, disregarding his unique action, history of injuries & incredible contribution to Indian cricket…Mohammed Siraj‘s 1113th delivery of the recently-concluded India-England series is still the toast of the nation. Bowled at a speed of 143 kph, it was the fifth-quickest ball bowled by the Hyderabad lionheart, and uprooted Gus Atkinson’s stumps to help India salvage a famous 2-2 draw in the series. It was Siraj’s superhuman effort in the series, in which he finished with 23 wickets over 10 innings, that sparked the conversation: “Who cares for workload management when a series is on the line?”Go Beyond The Boundary with our YouTube channel. SUBSCRIBE NOW!Sunil Gavaskar added fuel to the fire when he said that when you are playing for your country “you have to forget the aches and pains in your muscles. That’s what happens in the borders”.

Without naming anybody, the gun quite clearly was trained at Jasprit Bumrah, who chose to sit out of the fifth Test at the Oval despite a greenish pitch on offer. The Indian cricket board (BCCI), quite promptly, released a statement that Bumrah has been released from the team, and when India went on to win the Test match by six runs, the social media rhetoric changed to “is Bumrah actually needed to win Test matches”? Quite clearly, there’s an immediacy bias that has taken over the narrative, completely disregarding what India’s greatest match winner across formats has done in the recent past.

Let’s take you back to Dec 29, 2024, the fourth day of the fourth Test against Australia in Melbourne. The same Bumrah who had made it clear that he would play three Tests in the England series simply didn’t stop that day at the MCG. He bowled over after over after over with his quirky action, that too after having played the three Tests before that as well. He took 4/99 and had it not been for a couple of dropped catches by Yashasvi Jaiswal, India might have won that Test. Eventually India lost, courtesy some injudicious post-tea batting on Day 5, and when Bumrah went to play the fifth Test in Sydney, he suffered a recurrence of a back injury. Yet, he tried to get himself fit, appearing for a fitness test on the decisive third day of the Test. And when he failed, the relief in the Australia camp was palpable.So, this entire chatter about Bumrah not putting his body on the line for the country doesn’t hold water. By his own admission, Bumrah had declined Test captaincy for the England series — a rare honour for any player — because he knew his body didn’t have enough to play five Test matches on the trot anymore.

Former India paceman Lakshmipathy Balaji, whose international career was curtailed by a stress fracture of the back, agrees that “it is not possible to play everything when you have suffered an injury like that”. “Having said that, I do not know how judicious it is to sit out a crucial series-deciding Test match. It’s on the player, he is the best judge of his own body. I can’t definitely say what Bumrah should or shouldn’t have done because I haven’t played a five-Test series,” Balaji told TOI.Aussie legend Glenn McGrath said a few days ago that Bumrah needs a proper off-season to extend his career and be at his effective best. The elephant in the room, that everybody is probably stopping short of commenting on, is Bumrah’s 12-game involvement in the last IPL when he was coming back from injury. The paceman was outstanding for Mumbai Indians, bowling at a magical economy rate of 6.67 and taking 18 wickets in the process.While one can question whether Bumrah should have taken that time off to be fit to fire for every Test in England, we should also keep in mind that T20s are as much a modern-day commitment as five-day fixtures are.India play four more Tests this year, and after that, it’s a T20 festival which culminates in the World Cup in 2026. India broke their decade-long ICC title drought with the T20 World Cup win in West Indies last year, with Bumrah playing a massive role. Make no mistake, the clamour for the paceman’s presence will be equally loud when the Men in Blue go out to defend the crown at their own backyard in Feb-March.In this World Test Championship Cycle, barring the two Test matches that India play in New Zealand later next year, there aren’t too many ‘Bumrah has to play’ games. Most Tests are in the subcontinent and the only five-Test series that India play is against Australia, that too at home at the end of 2026, a series in which spinners will have a bigger role to play.Former India strength and conditioning coach Ramji Srinivasan says that in this day and age, the team management has all the data at their disposal and there is no way a player can just choose not to play. “The current trainer Adrian le Roux is extremely capable and knows what he is doing. If Bumrah has decided that he can only last three games in a series, there has to be enough data that backs up why he is doing so. We have to remember that Bumrah is a three-format player and India are not keen to sacrifice him completely in any format,” Srinivasan said.One would hope the team management will give Bumrah the space to operate on his own terms.