Mumbai Indians head coach Mahela Jayawardene has confirmed that gun fast bowler Jasprit Bumrah is available for selection against Royal Challengers Bengaluru on Monday. Bumrah suffered a back injury in the fifth Test match against Australia at Sydney in the Border-Gavaskar series earlier in January and he was recuperating at the NCA since then.
MI have got off to a poor start in IPL 2025, managing a solitary win in four matches and thus Bumrah’s return will certainly give them a boost.
“He is available,” Jayawardene said ahead of MI’s fifth game of the season, second at home ground. “He is training today, so he should be available tomorrow.” The MI coach went on to further address the point. “He arrived last night (Saturday, April 5). And I believe he had his sessions with NCA to finalise that. He has been handed over to our physios. So, yeah, it should be his bowling today. All good and he will play tomorrow.”
The former Sri Lankan captain said Bumrah’s experience will certainly help them and expects the ace pacer to give his best.
“Boom (Bumrah) is coming back from a pretty decent layoff. So, we need to give him that space and not expect too much. But knowing Jasprit, he’ll be up for it. And we’re very happy to have him in the camp.”
“The experience that he brings and that extra voice out there in the middle, chatting with Bolti (Trent Boult), chatting with Deepak (Chahar) or any other younger bowler, giving that advice is also very valuable for us. So, that’s what we’re looking forward to from him.”
Bumrah will definitely add a lot of value to MI’s playing XI and he would look to hit the ground running. On the other hand, Rohit Sharma was also seen practising in the nets after missing the previous match against Lucknow Super Giants due to injury.
