For the India team to have a big pool of quality speedsters to call up, it is important they all are fit and firing
Kolkata: Only once has Jasprit Bumrah missed an entire IPL season. And though he is reportedly set to just miss the first few rounds this time, Bumrah’s absence for Mumbai Indians has to be accepted as the price paid for getting him for an entire five-Test tour of Australia. It’s become a way of life for India’s fast bowling bench too nowadays; it was probably fine a couple of years back since Mohammed Siraj, Mohammed Shami and Umesh Yadav (in that order) were readily deployed according to the surface with Akash Deep, Prasidh Krishna and Mukesh Kumar gradually joining the ranks.
Jasprit Bumrah is likely to miss the initial games of the Indian Premier League 2025. (PTI)
That scenario has changed drastically. Siraj has gone off the boil, Shami’s endurance has been slipping, Krishna is injury prone and Umesh is off the radar. That leaves Kumar and Deep next in line, though Gautam Gambhir has tried to add depth to pace by blooding Harshit Rana in Australia.
Rohit Sharma had flagged this issue before the home series against New Zealand, calling for urgent introspection and a quick resolution. “We want to create a bench strength where tomorrow if anything happens to anyone, we are not worried, and we don’t want to be worried or too heavily reliant on a few individuals. That’s not the right thing to do,” he had said last October.
“We want to look at the future, and at the same time try and make sure we get the right guys in as well. We want to create guys where even if there are injuries, we have got someone to quickly step in and take that role. It’s not about three or four options. We want to try and do that like, you know, when it comes to batting, there are a lot of options. We want to create the same with the bowlers as well.”
IPL is Indian cricket’s main feeder system now. Like Bumrah and Siraj, almost everyone else’s audition was held here. Before earning his stripes in Ranji Trophy, Rana had already played a season with KKR in 2022. Mayank Yadav, who was part of the travelling reserves for the New Zealand series, first impressed in IPL for LSG with his tearaway pace. But he too is out of action due to a back stress. AT 22, Mayank should be happy to bowl as fast as he wants to rather than fear repeated breakdowns.
Yet it seems to have become routine for most young fast bowlers to get injured. This is the second time in two IPL seasons that Mayank is struggling to be fit. Last year, he was sidelined for five matches due to an abdominal soreness. He came back, only to be pulled off the field again after bowling just 3.1 overs against Mumbai Indians. Lucknow Super Giants seem to be particularly unlucky in this department, waiting on the clearance certificates of Mohsin Khan and Avesh Khan as well.
Mohsin, from Uttar Pradesh, has not bowled in a competitive match since the Vijay Hazare game against Chandigarh on December 31. Avesh’s injury is reportedly serious and he is currently in rehab at the NCA to tend to a knee cartilage problem. All of them are significant to keep India’s future pace options good, but their injuries has halted the senior team’s work on expanding this bunch. The minimum requirement from here must be a full season of bowling, but the history of the younger pacers doesn’t hold out much hope. Workload management of fast bowlers has been the buzzword for the past few years, but it can’t apply to young bowlers who have barely bowled beyond IPL.
More intriguing is the case of Umran Malik. (He was ruled out of IPL 2025 on Sunday due to injury with KKR picking left-arm pacer Chetan Sakariya as replacement). Having turned heads with his pace, leading to the fast-tracking of his career, he has swiftly dropped out of the public eye. He was the darling of Sunrisers Hyderabad, taking 22 wickets in 14 matches in the 2022 season, touching 157 kph to announce his arrival. An India debut came, followed by a phase where he was given enough chances because of that eye-catching pace.
Once his economy took a beating though, Malik was abandoned. SRH released him and KKR bought him for a bargain price of ₹ ₹75 lakh. From a retention price high of ₹4 crore, this was some crash landing. There is hope Mayank, Mohsin and Avesh would be fit to play this IPL. For Indian fast bowling to keep landing blows, it’s important they all fire this season.
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