Ajit Agarkar has finally confirmed that Jasprit Bumrah won’t be available for all the five Tests in England.
The premier fast bowler has been nursing a stress reaction on his lower back since the final Test of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy in Australia and missed three months of cricket.
It is widely believed that excessive workload during the series Down Under had resulted in the injury and his workload needs to be managed carefully.
Bumrah finished the five-match series as the highest wicket-taker, 32 scalps at an average of 13.06 and a strike-rate of 28.3. This, after failing to bowl in the final innings of the Sydney Test.
His fitness has always been a concern because of his open-chested, front-on action and zero momentum in his run-up. The amount of load his back takes at the point of release makes him susceptible to injuries.
It had reached such a stage in Australia that Bumrah was heard pleading to Rohit Sharma during the end of the fourth day in Melbourne that he was unable to continue. “Bas ab, nahi laga raha zor (Enough now, I can’t push anymore)”, Bumrah was heard saying on the stump-microphone.
Bumrah has since made a comeback in the IPL to lift Mumbai Indians’ fortunes.
“I don’t think he will be available for all five Tests, the physios and the doctors have told us,” Agarkar said in Mumbai on Saturday.
“Whether it’s four or three (Tests), we will see how the series goes and how his body can take the workload. Needless to say how important he is, even if he’s fit for three or four Tests, he’s going to win us a few Test matches.
“So we are just glad that he is fit and that little setback that he had in Australia wasn’t too bad. He’s back playing... I know it’s T20 cricket at the moment, but we’ve seen what he’s doing in the IPL. We are just happy that he’s part of the squad,” the chief selector remarked.
The upcoming series will be Bumrah’s third in England, where he has 37 wickets in eight matches (excluding the 2021 World Test Championship final), at an average of 23.78.
Bumrah’s back issue also ruled him out as a contender for the Test captaincy once Rohit Sharma retired since the selectors weren’t keen on a stop-gap arrangement. They wanted continuity and didn’t want to burden the fast bowler with additional responsibility in the circumstances.
“Booms, because he led in Australia, he was the vice-captain, but once he’s not going to be available for all the Test matches (he couldn’t be part of the captaincy conversation),” Agarkar said.
“He is more important to us as a player. We want him fit. There’s always that extra burden when you are managing 15-16 other people. There’s a lot that it takes out of you. We’d rather have him bowling as well as he does than putting that extra burden on him.
“He is aware of it. We’ve had a chat with him and he’s okay with it. He knows where his body is at and he’d rather look after himself and be bowling fit. It was more his workload management and having him fit as a bowler, more than anything else.”
