'Take a break': Jasprit Bumrah told not to play for upto one year to fully recover from his injuries
‘Take a break’: Jasprit Bumrah told not to play for upto one year to fully recover from his injuries originally appeared on Cricket News.
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KEY TAKEAWAYS:
- Jasprit Bumrah ruled out again, misses India vs Sri Lanka Test series.
- Former pacers Karsan Ghavri and Raju Kulkarni suggest an extended break or a single-format focus.
- Bumrah’s absence pattern shows several missed series since 2025.
Jasprit Bumrah advised to take an extended break as injury troubles continue
India’s premier fast bowler Jasprit Bumrah has been left out of the upcoming red-ball series against Sri Lanka, which extends an already troubling pattern of injury-related absences.
Bumrah had initially been included in India’s touring squad for Sri Lanka, but that selection always hinged on clearing a fitness test at the BCCI’s Centre of Excellence in Bengaluru. That clearance failed to arrive in time, ruling him out of the series entirely.
This setback adds to a comeback that has already been handled cautiously since he picked up a back injury during the 2024-25 Border-Gavaskar Trophy tour of Australia.
He went on to play just three of five Tests during last year’s England series, was rested for the one-off Test against Afghanistan in June, and now finds himself unavailable once again.
Karsan Ghavri urges long break for Bumrah’s complete fitness recovery
Former India pacer Karsan Ghavri has suggested Bumrah might benefit from stepping away from the game for as long as a year if that’s what it takes to return to full fitness.
Ghavri pointed out that India’s packed cricketing calendar makes properly managing his workload genuinely difficult.
Speaking to Mid-day, he explained that Bumrah often enters tournaments while only partially fit, which then leads to breakdowns midway through a series due to workload strain.
“Bumrah should take a break for five to six months or even a year, and get back to 100 per cent fitness,” he said.
“The issue is that he goes into tournaments even if he’s half-fit and then, due to workload management, halfway through, there’s a breakdown. This is unnecessary. Only if he can manage his workload throughout a tournament should he be included in the team.”
Ghavri also pointed to Mohammed Shami and Bhuvneshwar Kumar, both of whom have played through the IPL without injury setbacks, and should be brought back into the national fold.
“Shami and Bhuvi have been playing consistently in the IPL without injuries and should return to the national set-up,” he said. “Selectors should consider them. All fast bowlers face niggles or injuries, but Bumrah has been on and off for the last two-three years. He has hardly played an entire series. That’s not a good sign for him or for the country.”
Another former India seamer, Raju Kulkarni, offered a different suggestion, as he proposed that Bumrah should scale back to playing only Test cricket moving forward.
“I don’t think Bumrah can sustain playing all formats. The team management must consider playing him only in Tests as that’s a critical format,” he suggested.
“Though he may want to play IPL, T20Is and ODIs too, it’s not viable. For this reason, it will be great if Mohammed Siraj can get the support of senior pacers like Shami and Bhuvi. Bhuvi should be used in T20Is because he’s done brilliantly in the IPL. And you can rotate Shami and Siraj in Tests. This will reduce the pressure on Bumrah.”
A hard reset might be Bumrah’s best path forward before the 2027 ODI World Cup
Looking at just how frequently Bumrah has been sidelined since 2025, it’s difficult to argue against the idea that something fundamentally needs to change in how his workload is handled.
Several missed series in under two years isn’t simply bad luck; it points to a recurring cycle where short-term fixes keep failing to address the underlying problem.
Both Ghavri and Kulkarni raise valid points, even if their proposed solutions differ slightly. An extended break, rather than the current pattern of brief rest periods followed by premature returns, could actually give Bumrah the physical reset his body clearly needs.
Equally, narrowing his format commitments makes sense given how much strain fast bowling places on the body across three formats simultaneously.
The bigger challenge for India lies in balancing short-term results against long-term player welfare. Every time Bumrah has been rushed back into action, it’s ended the same way, and sticking with that approach only risks cutting his career shorter rather than making it longer.
If the selectors genuinely want him firing on all cylinders for tournaments like the 2027 World Cup, giving him a proper, well-planned recovery now makes far more sense than another hurried comeback that just leads back to square one.
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