Chairman of Selectors Chetan Sharma admitted that the BCCI tried to hurry up Jasprit Bumrah’s return to the Indian team for the T20 World Cup which backfired for them. Bumrah sustained a back injury ahead of Asia Cup and was ruled out of the multi-nation tournament. However, he was called back for the T20I matches against Australia and South Africa. He played in the 2nd T20I versus Australia but after that, the injury aggravated and he missed the third T20I and series against the Proteas. The BCCI took its time to assess Bumrah before ruling him out of the T20 World Cup.
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Mohammed Shami was named the late replacement for Bumrah for the mega ICC event.
Chetan, who announced the squads for the upcoming tours of New Zealand and Bangladesh on Monday, talked about the importance of workload management and said that the medical and NCA teams are looking after Bumrah and he is expected to return for the Test series against Australia later this year.
“I always speak about managing the players. Workload management is something we follow very closely. We tried to hurry up with Jasprit Bumrah when the World Cup was approaching and look at what happened, we are without Jasprit Bumrah in the World Cup. The NCA team and the medical team are looking after him very well and he will definitely be part and parcel of the team very soon, definitely against Australia. But against Bangladesh we were a little cautious with Jasprit Bumrah, we tried to not repeat what we did earlier,” the Chief selector said in the press conference.
“There is a reason behind resting players, the selectors don’t enjoy changing teams and captains. But considering the volume of cricket and the load management of players, we have to keep looking after their bodies. At the end of the day, they are human. But he (Bumrah) will be back soon, there are good teams working with him and I’m hopeful that he’ll start playing for India soon,” he added.
Meanwhile, the selectors decided to rest start players like Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma and KL Rahul for the New Zealand tour to manage their workload. Hardik Pandya has been named captain for T20Is, while Shikhar Dhawan will lead the team in ODIs against the Kiwis. Rohit, Kohli and Rahul will return to the team for the Bangladesh tour.
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