Time to stop doubting Bumrah, get used to him picking and choosing his Tests 

The Jasprit Bumrah conundrum refuses to go away as the pace ace has now been released from the India squad even as Shubman Gill & Co. battle in the final Test at The Oval to save the series. The news, confirmed by the BCCI on Friday, holds no surprise as Bumrah has already played the three Tests as decided earlier, though muted complaints are being raised about the visitors doing without their main strike bowler on a green top.

The obsession over will he, won’t he ahead of all Tests in the Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy barring the first one, has once again underlined the over-dependence of the team management on the fast bowler in the longer format. A news report in Times of India says the Indian board may ‘rethink’ their policy of letting Bumrah pick and choose his Test matches, though it looks extremely unlikely that the BCCI will take a coercive line with their main wicket taker.

The timeline of Bumrah and his saga of workload management has been quite well defined, he came clear in an interview on the eve of the first Test that he had refused the Test captaincy as he would not be in a position to play a rather congested series of five Tests inside seven weeks.

Speaking to Dinesh Karthik on Sky Sports, Bumrah had said: ‘’I’ve spoken to the people who have managed my back, I have spoken to the surgeon as well, who’s always spoken to me about how smart you have to be about these workloads.

‘’And then we came to the conclusion that I have to be a little smarter. So then I called BCCI and said I don’t want to be looked at in a leadership role, because I won’t be able to give all matches coming to a five-Test series,’’ he said.

This was a conscious choice on the part of Bumrah, who had put his hands for standing in as captain in the first Test at Perth at the Border-Gavaskar Trophy only six-seven months back, before bending his back to play in all five games for 32 wickets but ended up paying the price for it with recurrence of the back injury.

Till the eve of the fifth Test, Bumrah had claimed 14 wickets in three Tests he played at  an average of 26.00, making him India’s joint-top wicket-taker in the series alongwith Mohammed Siraj. It may not necessarily match up to his exalted standards, but then it has not gone unnoticed that Bumrah’s pace had dipped appreciably as England went about piling the runs during the fourth Test at Old Trafford where he was making back-to-back appearances.

Far from playing a prima donna, the best pace bowler in the game across formats had been as transparent as possible on the issue — though a section of TV pundits, along with the social media, have been often uncharitable about his decision of playing in selected Test matches.

There’s no need to re-emphasise the fact that the source of Bumrah’s greatest strength — the mix of deceptive speed and unpredictable movement lies in his quirky action with a very limited load-up. This, however, creates a great deal of stress on his back and the only way to survive it is by managing his workload and that’s precisely what the smiling assassin is trying to do.

Former greats like Michael Holding or Kapil Dev, who do not buy into the concept of workload management, have urged caution in the past to preserve him rather than pushing him to a corner and make him retire from red ball cricket altogether.    

“With Jasprit Bumrah, it’s going to be a case of picking and choosing and that’s perfectly fine. I believe he should play as long as he’s able to. For example, in a four-match series in India, it shouldn’t be the case that he doesn’t play any just because he can’t play all four. That wouldn’t be right. Given the kind of bowler Bumrah is, if he plays two out of the four Tests, I’d be fine with that, knowing he’s contributing in those two,” said former Test opener Aakash Chopra on his YouTube channel.

The Bumrah show must go on in red ball cricket, even if off and on!