Ever since Team India came on Australia tour, a fear was troubling every Indian fan. Perhaps the team management must have been apprehensive about this somewhere. This fear of the fans and the possible apprehension of the management proved true on the second day of the Sydney Test match on 4 January. Team India's star fast bowler Jasprit Bumrah did not come on the field on the second day of this last match of the series because he started having spasm in his back. After this, Bumrah remained out of the field the whole day and it is not clear whether he will bowl on the third day or not. But why was he in such a situation? If we look at this entire series, then Team India itself is responsible for it somewhere.
In this series, the entire responsibility of Team India's bowling was sure to be on Bumrah because his partner Mohammed Shami was not fit and could not be a part of the series. Along with him was another experienced bowler Mohammad Siraj, who was struggling for form for some time. Siraj did achieve that rhythm but it took three Tests completely and he looked strong from the fourth Test. The remaining bowlers were Harshit Rana, Akash Deep and Prasidh Krishna. Apart from these, the responsibility was also on young all-rounder Nitish Kumar Reddy, but how much he would bowl was anyone's guess.
In such a situation, Team India did not have many options and it was certain that there would be more load on Bumrah. Ultimately the same thing happened. Just before lunch on the second day at Sydney Cricket Ground, when Bumrah returned to the dressing room for some time, everyone's heartbeat increased. However, if he returned immediately, everyone would have heaved a sigh of relief. But when Team India came on the field after lunch but Bumrah was not among the 11 players present there, then everyone started suspecting something wrong. After all that is what happened. Bumrah went to the hospital in a car outside the stadium and returned after getting the scan done.
It would not be wrong if mismanagement of workload is also blamed for Bumrah's condition. Everyone knew that Bumrah would be the main source of wickets in this series but he needed proper support, which he could not get. The result was that before leaving the field, Bumrah had bowled the maximum number of overs for Team India in the 9 innings of this series. Yes, Bumrah had bowled a total of 151.2 overs in this series till the first innings.
Ahead of him in this series are only Australian captain Pat Cummins (163 overs) and Mitchell Starc (153.2 overs). After Bumrah, Mohammad Siraj is at second place for India, who bowled 145.1 overs. At number three is Akash Deep, who bowled 77.5 overs in 2 matches. Whereas all-rounder Nitish Reddy, who played all 5 matches of the series, bowled only 42 overs. This is enough to tell that the entire burden was only on Bumrah and Siraj and even in that, Bumrah had to bowl more than necessary because he was not getting much support from the other side.
When Bumrah, who sat out for almost a year due to a back injury, returned to the field in 2023, his bowling is at a new level. The result has been that Team India has been doing well in almost every tournament and series. Despite this, there is always a fear in everyone's mind that this star pacer might get injured suddenly, or an old problem might surface.
The way Team India management made selections in this series, it had increased this danger. In an attempt to strengthen the batting, the bowling was not filled to its full capacity. All-rounders like Washington Sundar, Ravindra Jadeja, Reddy were selected but they were not made to bowl much. In such a situation, every time Bumrah had to bowl different spells and now its effect was visible in the decisive test. Now we can only hope that this is not a very serious injury because there is a lot of cricket left ahead.
