NEW DELHI: It’s taken Jasprit Bumrah two months to rejoin the Indian team after suffering a knee injury on the tour of England. On Friday evening, as he walked out to mark his run-up at the nets here at the Ferozeshah Kotla ahead of the three-match T20I series against Afghanistan and bowled with an effortless five-step run-up, it was clear he had recovered fully. The first delivery whizzed off the pitch and clattered into the stumps.The first 10 deliveries he sent down to Sanju Samson and Vaibhav Sooryavanshi had the competing openers rooted to their crease. The trademark yorkers and deliveries seaming both ways from the good length were on full display. It was hard to believe Bumrah was coming off a long injury layoff. The significance of his 45-minute spell under lights augurs well ahead of a busy season for India.Over the last half a decade, team managements have been ultra-cautious about Bumrah. It’s no more about how many matches Bumrah plays. It’s about him staying fit to play the superhero, orchestrating bailouts in crunch tournaments and series. A full-strength Indian team appearing in the Asian Games may be a great advert for cricket’s Olympic aspirations, but the team’s calendar for the next year leading to the ODI World Cup in South Africa may demand the caretakers of Indian cricket to be judicious about the soon-to-be 33-year-old star pacer.Once part of a revered pace bowling pool which had Ishant Sharma, Mohammed Shami, Umesh Yadav, Bhuvneshwar Kumar and a young Mohammed Siraj, Bumrah now carries the entire weight of India’s fast-bowling attack. Siraj’s recent dramatic slide in form has the selectors and team management worried.The coming five months are crucial for India’s survival in this World Test Championship (WTC) cycle before the focus solely shifts to the ODI format.With the ODI and Test series in New Zealand due to start in another 50 days, the team management would want Bumrah to be in prime shape. He is now a comfortable senior statesman in the team and was seen having constant chats with young pacers like Yash Thakur and Nitish Kumar Reddy in the nets.The sports science and medical teams of the BCCI will be on their toes for the next one year to ensure India avail the best of Bumrah.
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