India vs Australia: Jasprit Bumrah© AFP
Jasprit Bumrah was India’s stand out player with 32 wickets in their 1-3 thrashing at the hands of Australia in the just-concluded Border-Gavaskar Trophy. He featured either with the bat or with ball on all days of the series, except one. He couldn’t bowl in the final innings of the series in Sydney after suffering back spasms. The 30-year-old Bumrah bowled more than 150 overs in the series. According to a report in news agency PTI, the injury has a direct link to his excessive workload in the series.
According to sources privy to the development, the grade of Bumrah’s back spasm has not yet been ascertained. Former India star spinner Harbhajan Singh said Bumrah was over-used by the Indian team management.
“He was used like you squeezed juice from sugarcane. It was like ‘Travis Head has come, give the ball to Bumrah, Marnus has come, give the ball to Bumrah, Steve Smith has come, give the ball to Bumrah’. How many overs will Bumrah bowl? He has been reduced to such a condition that he was not available at the end. If he was there, Australia may have won the fifth Test but they would have lost eight wickets, it would have been tough for them,” Harbhajan Singh said on his YouTube channel.
“You broke his back and the management should have decided on how many overs he should be given.”
The great spinner was unforgiving in his analysis of India’s team selection for the fifth Test in Sydney.
“The team selection was not right. Two spinners were played on a spicy pitch, you saw green patches. It is beyond my understanding that despite playing so much cricket and watching so much cricket you do not understand such a small thing… what to do on such pitch. The gentleman who has gone there and sitting there together if he is not able to understand this thing then I don’t know what he is doing,” he said.
“What is the point of having two spinners on this pitch. Your spinners did bowl very little, you are just making batting line-up longer. It is not right, they are just stuck in their stubbornness. This is not a T20 format, this is Test cricket.
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