The Indian team suffered a body blow even before they commenced their full series against England. On Saturday evening, it was announced that pace bowler Jasprit Bumrah had suffered an injury which ruled him out of the 3-match T20I series that begins on Tuesday. The Indian team are in pursuit of the number one ranking in T20 Internationals, and the injury to Bumrah will have certainly come as a jolt to their planning.
Sure, the Indian team has several quality pace bowling options to choose from, but Bumrah, through sheer hard work and consistent performances over a period of time, earned the mantle of the team’s bowling spearhead. He was the captain’s go-to-man. mantle
A reflection of Bumrah’s consistent performances can be seen in him being the top-ranked fast bowler in the ICC T20I rankings for bowlers
Bumrah made his debut for his state team Gujarat in March 2013, and in less than three years, he was representing India. The Ahmedabad-born pacer, with a combination of his awkward bowling action, pace and accuracy, has made rapid strides in his time with the national team and is now India’s second-highest wicket-taker in the T20I format.
A very good series against England would have seen Bumrah displace Ravichandran Ashwin from the perch; but that will have to wait now, as the finger injury he suffered in the 2nd T20I against Ireland has ruled Bumrah out from at least the forthcoming 3 T20Is against England.
In Bumrah, India had found a bowler for all situations; he could bowl with the new ball, was capable of slipping a quiet over in the middle period, and would turn deadly in the death overs.
The Indian captain Virat Kohli, coach Ravi Shastri and rest of the support staff are now faced with the difficult task of reworking the team’s bowling combination; they have to identify bowlers who can fill and do the difficult job of taking wickets at the death, while also not conceding too many runs. The options available to them currently are Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Umesh Yadav, Siddarth Kaul, Deepak Chahar and Hardik Pandya.
Bhuvneshwar Kumar is a much-improved death overs bowler these days, but he can only bowl a total of four overs in a match – some of which he will bowl with the new ball, and he can only bowl from one end. That leaves captain Kohli to find someone to bowl at least two overs from the other end. Siddarth Kaul did well bowling the death overs in the IPL; he returned the best death overs economy rate of all the quicks in the Indian squad in England. But he is new to international cricket, and he could find the situation demanding if given to bowl two overs at the death.
Among the rest, Umesh Yadav and Hardik Pandya aren’t really options any captain would want to utilise at the death; Yadav had a death overs economy rate of 14.10 in IPL 2018 (in contrast to his economy of 7.04 in the earlier period), while Hardik went at 10.50 runs per over. Deepak Chahar, summoned as a replacement for Bumrah, established a reputation of being a ‘new ball bowler’; most often his captain at Chennai Super Kings – MS Dhoni – would bowl him out in one spell, or generally bowl him out before the half-way stage. Though he impressed with his ability to bowl the yorkers consistently in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy T20 competition last year, Chahar’s temperament – as much as his abilities – are yet to be tested on the international stage.
How will the Indian camp fill the void created by the injury to Bumrah? Who will step in to do the dual job Bumrah did? We’ll know the answers soon; the first T20I of the 3-match series will be played on 3 June 2018 at Old Trafford. You can follow updates from the match in our live blog here.
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