It was why Bumrah’s appearance in the ODIs against England in July was his first in the 50-over format since the 2023 World Cup final. For a few years now, the workload management of Jasprit Bumrah has entailed the selectors preserving him in the white-ball format where there is no World Cup around the corner.
At a time when the priority is next year’s ODI World Cup, India has veered away from that approach by picking Bumrah for three T20Is against Afghanistan and the Asian Games. Skipper Shreyas Iyer said on Saturday that the idea was to give the spearhead, who is returning from a knee injury suffered during the England series, as much game time as possible at this stage.
Because players are putting in efforts for the team, and if that effort turns out to be on the negative side, you can’t control it,” Shreyas reasoned, it is. “Since he is coming out of an injury, it’s important he gets game time. You need that sort of confidence when you’re coming into the game. He’s immensely experienced, but if you ask me, I would want more game time and more confidence leading up to a certain tournament. “I feel it’s not frustrating. “I interacted with him after the practice session. It was just a niggle”.
I interacted with him, and he’s in that mindset where he wants to perform for the team and see to it that we win championships,” Shreyas told the media on the eve of the first T20I against Afghanistan. “Ishan is comfortable at the moment,” he said.