By the time India open their Asia Cup campaign on September 10 against hosts UAE in Abu Dhabi, it will have been 438 days since Jasprit Bumrah played a T20I for his country.
In that time, the 31-year-old has turned out only in Test cricket – his last ODI was the World Cup final on November 19, 2023 – and in the IPL for Mumbai Indians this year. Since he was forced into surgery at the start of the year, after being ground to the bone in Australia where stump mics picked up frustration, Bumrah’s workload management has become a massive talking point, and this meant that he played just three of the five Test matches in England this summer.
Since June 27, Bumrah has had only rest, and the Asia Cup opener will mark his return to T20I cricket.
In his absence from the shortest format since June 2024, the Indian cricket team has played 20 T20Is. During this period, their pace attack has comprised, at various times, Arshdeep Singh, Hardik Pandya, Avesh Khan, Mukesh Kumar, Mayank Yadav, Khaleel Ahmed, Harshit Rana, Mohammed Shami, Tushar Deshpande, and Mohammed Siraj.
The more subtle medium pace offerings of Shivam Dube, Nitish Reddy and Ramandeep Singh have also been tried.
Given his status and success – he is India’s fifth most successful wicket-taker in T20Is – it is a given than whenever Bumrah rejoins the team, he becomes their de facto leader.
But at 31, and given his injury history and subsequent workload management, how much longer can Bumrah remain a three-format bowler?
There is a T20 World Cup at home in 2026, for which the BCCI and Bumrah’s medical team must surely be planning. There are limited ODIs before that, given that the next World Cup is not until 2027, and a total of four Test matches, each of them at home where Bumrah might be rotated in and out of the attack.
Each time he’s made a comeback, whatever the format be, Bumrah has dispelled doubts with his performances. Yet on social media, the trolls say that he’s always up for playing for Mumbai Indians but isn’t as sturdy when it comes to his India commitments. A few former India cricketers have been critical of Bumrah’s workload management, whole others have backed the bowler. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t, seems to be the case with Bumrah.
He is at the age where his availability in all three formats will have to be monitored closely. It already is, as evident by the fact that Bumrah has not played an ODI since the 2023 World Cup final, but with each passing year the situation will become trickier.
Surely the BCCI have Bumrah in mind for the next ODI World Cup which starts in November 2027. In Tests, he will no doubt be rested sporadically. That leaves the big question regarding T20I cricket: will next year’s T20 World Cup be Bumrah’s swansong?
If so, then getting him through the Asia Cup is critical, and then how the BCCI manages him from October to the start of the World Cup in February promises to be interesting – and polarizing in opinion, for sure.
