The Indian cricket team is 2-0 up in the 3-match series against England but there still remains a few worries with respect to the ICC Champions Trophy preparedness. The biggest worry for the Indian team management is the fitness of marquee pacer Jasprit Bumrah, who hasn’t played competitive cricket since the 5th Test of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy in Sydney. With the deadline to finalise the ICC Champions Trophy squad coming, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) is in a race against time to finalise their plans for Bumrah.
The pacer recently underwent scans for the back injury that has had him sitting on the sidelines for the last few weeks. As per a report in the Times of India, the BCCI is likely to wait for Bumrah to regain full fitness, even if it means taking a partially-ready pacer to the Champions Trophy.
“Even if there is a 1% chance, the BCCI is likely to wait. They did the same with Hardik Pandya as they waited for close to two weeks before getting Prasidh Krishna as a replacement. Even when Shubman Gill was down with dengue, they didn’t have any thoughts of looking for a replacement. Yes, those two incidents happened during the campaign but approach with Bumrah could well be no different. This is just the deadline to submit the squad and they could approach the Event Technical Committee at a later stage to seek a replacement if he fails to regain fitness,” the paper quoted a source as saying.
Bumrah isn’t just the No. 1 pacer in the Indian team but arguably the finest in the world at present. Hence, the Indian board is expected to go the extra mile to have him ready for the tournament, even if it means seeing him miss the first few matches.
The speedster was asked to refrain from even exercising for about 5 weeks as the BCCI medical team worked on his back injury. It has now been reported that Bumrah is set to start his rehabilitation process at the National Cricket Academy in Bengaluru.
Depending upon how quickly he progresses, the BCCI will decide on his participation in the Champions Trophy. However, the board isn’t likely to omit him from the final Champions Trophy squad, which is required to be named on February 11.
As clarity is awaited on Bumrah’s case, India are expected to name Varun Chakravarthy to the team for the Champions Trophy.
“Clearly during the series it presents us an opportunity to play him at some stage and see what he is capable of. Right now we are not thinking about whether we are going to take him or not but definitely he will be in contention. If things plan out really well for us and he does what is required then definitely there is something that we need to think about,” India captain Rohit Sharma had said during the pre-series media interaction.
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