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'Bumrah's back in fragile state right now. A wrong call may even…': India legend to monitor star pacer's recovery
An India legend has been assigned to exclusively track Jasprit Bumrah's recovery post back surgery.
It has been seven months since Jasprit Bumrah last played a cricket match. The senior India pacer has been out due to a severe back injury and is set to miss a reasonable amount of time after undergoing surgery. Bumrah has so far missed the T20 World Cup, the Border-Gavaskar Trophy and has been ruled out of the Indian Premier League for the first time in his career to go with the World Test Championship final. The plan is to get Bumrah fit in time for the World Cup but there is no guarantee; twice he's been rushed back in – just before last year's World Cup and most recently ahead of the ODIs against Sri Lanka – and it has only made matters worse.
Now, as per a recent report carried by The Indian Express, Bumrah's recovery is one of the top agendas up BCCI's plate, and for that the board is not willing to take any risk. As a matter of fact, only a handful of the board authorities are aware of the extent of Bumrah's injury and the sole responsibility of tracking the India pacer's recovery has been assigned to National Cricket Academy chief VVS Laxman. He alone will be in touch with Bumrah regularly and play an active part on his road to recovery.
"Not many in the BCCI are aware of his injury. Only VVS Laxman (NCA director) has been assigned to speak to him and the physios. Even the selection committee has been told that they will be informed about Bumrah's actual injury and his rehab details in due course," a source told IE.
The Indian team has been plagued with injuries to some of its prominent cricketers. Rishabh Pant is out for an indefinite period of time, while Shreyas Iyer too has been gripped by a back issue for which the India batter is expected to go under the knife. Add to that another few months without Bumrah and Team India already finds itself in troubled waters. Hence, no one is in any rush to bring Bumrah back even if it means that he has to miss another few months of cricket. It has been further reported that the condition of Bumrah's back as of now is very weak and one wrong call can even end his career.
"His back is in a fragile state right now. Besides, last time Bumrah's return was hastened. Since he hadn't fully recovered, he had discomfort while bowling on his return. This time, we are more conservative as a wrong call might even result in a career-threatening injury," the source added.
Post the IPL and WTC final, India will travel to the West Indies for a limited-overs tour, followed by the Asia Cup. Ideally the plan is to give Bumrah some sort of match fitness before the World Cup but do not rule out the possibility of straightaway seeing Bumrah at ICC's showpiece event.
