The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) is in a pickle. Jasprit Bumrah, their ace, isn’t certain to play in the ICC Champions Trophy. Yesterday, it was confirmed that Bumrah won’t participate in the India vs. England ODI series, the only preparatory event for the Men in Blue before the Champions Trophy.
Jasprit Bumrah’s injury and workload management
The pacer was injured during the Border-Gavaskar Trophy. It was reported that he’ll miss the group-stage matches but could feature in the knockout games of the ICC Champions Trophy. However, nothing is certain at the moment. If the BCCI pushed Bumrah to play, he might injure himself further and could miss the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025 season as well.
“It’s more about the Indian team, how they manage him. I would say, you look at a guy like Jasprit Bumrah, and you want him to be playing all the key series, all the key tournaments. So they have to manage his workload in between tournaments,” Philander said on the sidelines of the SA20.
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BCCI’s Mumbai Indians conundrum
How will BCCI navigate this situation? IPL owners are big stakeholders in Indian cricket now, and Mumbai Indians (MI) won’t like Bumrah being unavailable. Former South Africa pacer Vernon Philander has talked about the challenges of managing the workload of fast bowlers in such a jam-packed schedule.
“Obviously, with IPL coming up, you want a player like that to be available for most games, but therein lies the trick. How do you manage him throughout the IPL season? Because there’s plenty of games as a player. And overall, I mean if you look at the amount of games that India play, over the calendar year, that load is quite massive,” he added.
Cricket
IPL 2026 schedule delayed due to RR's hesitancy to play in Jaipur, BCCI says stadium 'significantly lags behind'
