ICC World T20 2022: Bumrah definitely needs time to recover; Should he take Starc's path?
ICC Men's T20 World Cup 2022: While Jasprit Bumrah definitely needs time to recover, Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid hopeful of his return.
India find themselves in a bit of a quandary ahead of ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2022 set to begin on October 16 in Australia. Being injury hit ahead of a mega event does upset the plans of Team India who have been concerted in their efforts to make a difference, not just due to the rightful expectations bestowed upon them by their fans but also because the team management under head coach Rahul Dravid has carved out a particular way forward. In this very context, injuries sustained by India’s lead pacer Jasprit Bumrah and premier all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja have hit India like a bullet from nowhere.
Ravindra Jadeja is surely not going to feature in the World Cup and Bumrah’s condition also looks pretty grim, notwithstanding Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) president Sourav Ganguly’s insinuation that Bumrah is not yet out of contention. His back injury is something which is of a serious nature and may keep him out of the World T20 and a few more months down the line.
In the last few months, Bumrah missed Asia Cup 2022 held in the months of August and September with the same injury. Then he didn’t play the opening T20I game against Australia in the recently concluded three-match T20I series; after playing the last two games of that series, Bumrah again has been ruled out of the ongoing home T20I series against South Africa.
Read More: ICC World T20 2022: After Jadeja’s omission, Bumrah may also be ruled out due to injury
Painful side of stress fracture
This sort of stress fracture in the lower back could be really painful and it takes immense hard work for the player to make a return; it is difficult to say whether Bumrah would remain the same player after his return.
Bumrah has stress fracture in the lower back which means that he has tiny cracks in the bones of his lower back which appear due to overload and overuse. A few analysts and biomechanics experts have expressed that Bumrah has an advantage of releasing the ball late which makes it hard for the batters to judge but on the flipside of the coin, that late release comes at the cost of additional load on his lower back and given his shoulder and elbows become stiff in the delivery stride, the back takes a lot of load at the point of delivery.
After bowling a couple of overs or so, the body gets tired and the player soon begins to look at the massage room; sitting on a chair with legs elevated on it besides taking light pain killers are regularly consumed.
Ganguly and Dravid both hopeful for Bumrah’s return
Bumrah who has joined Ravindra Jadeja in the injury list didn’t travel with the Indian team to Guwahati for the second T20I game against the Proteas, but the pacer flied to Bengaluru to report at the National Cricket Academy (NCA) to further work on his fitness.
However, BCCI president Sourav Ganguly has shown full hope of adding Bumrah on the plane to Australia for the World Cup. Ganguly’s comments came on the back of a BCCI official’s words to PTI which said that Bumrah could be out for a period of six months.
“Bumrah is not out of the World Cup yet,” Ganguly expressed to Xtra Time digital channel in Kolkata on Friday and has said that a final decision would be taken in the next few days.
India head coach Rahul Dravid also spoke to the media on the eve of the second South Africa T20I about how this injury blow to Bumrah at the eleventh hour could spoil their bowling plans.
“I haven’t gone deeply into the medical reports; I rely on the experts to tell me what it is and obviously, t