Jasprit Bumrah, the lead Indian pacer, was added to India’s squad for the ODI series against Sri Lanka on January 3 and much to the surprise of the Indian fans, the pacer was ruled out of the squad for the series on January 9, Monday. For the unversed, the first match will be contested on Tuesday and the Indian Rohit Sharma skipper opened up on the pacer ahead of the game during the press conference.
The right-handed batter said that it was an unfortunate case as Bumrah complained of a stiff back while he was training. Rohit said that the board and the selectors were not ready to risk pushing the pacer as there is a 50-over World Cup scheduled to take place later this year. It remains to be seen if Bumrah’s absence would affect the Men in Blue in the series, although the team would leave no stone unturned to clinch a win.
I thought it was important for us to make that decision: Rohit Sharma
Rohit said that the pacer was brought in to play against the Lankan Lions in order to manage the workload and get him running, focussing on the multinational tournament. However, the Indian skipper did not shy away from admitting to flaws and hoped for the pacer to be back at the earliest.
“It’s very unfortunate for him. The poor guy has been working really hard at the NCA for all this time. Just when he got back, he had full fitness, he started bowling and everything. In the last two days, I think this incident happened when he felt a little bit of stiffness in his back,” Rohit was quoted as saying in the press conference.
“It’s nothing major, it’s just stiffness. And when Bumrah says anything, we have to be very cautious about it and that is what we did. I thought it was important for us to make that decision to pull him out because when we named him, he was in the process of getting his workload done, he was bowling in the nets. We need to be very careful with him. He had a major injury before the World Cup, so we have to be careful,” he added.
