CHENNAI: On Saturday evening, Mumbai Indians once again left it on Jasprit Bumrah to try and achieve the near impossible–defend 160 at the MA Chidambaram Stadium against the Chennai Super Kings.Bumrah bowled his heart out, dismissed the red-hot Sanju Samson, and took 1-20 in three overs. But CSK played him out, attacked from the other end, and won easily.That has been the case right through this IPL – in nine games, Bumrah has already bowled 33 overs going at a rate of 8.61, when the others have bled runs far more profusely. MI want Bumrah to do the defensive and attacking duties at the same time, and the jaded paceman, who has been playing continuous cricket since the beginning of the T20 World Cup, is struggling to deliver the wickets.Predictably enough, he is copping some of the blame for the dismal MI performance, who are all but out of contention for a play-off berth. And that brings us to the important question: “Will MI rest him now for the rest of the tournament?” MI coach Mahela Jayawardene didn’t seem to buy the idea at the press meet after the Saturday mauling. “We are not yet out, are we?” Mahela turned to the accompanying media manager, who vigorously nodded to let the coach know that there’s still life left in the campaign.“It’s too early for me to say any-thing, we still have five more games, anything can happen for us. We just need to finish the tournament positively and see what happens. There’s a lot more cricket to be played, I don’t think mathematically we’re out from the tournament, so I’m going to fight and I’m sure the rest of the boys will do the same as well,” Jayawardene said when asked about resting Bumrah for the rest of the tournament.
Maybe someone should remind the Sri Lankan legend about 2022, when MI were enduring a campaign as wretched as this one. They won only four games and finished last, but Bumrah was made to play all the 14 games. He bowled 53.2 overs in the entire tournament out of his available 56, took 15 wickets and had an economy rate of 7.15.Brilliant figures no doubt, but what happened after that spelt nightmare not just for Bumrah, but also the Indian team. Bowling flat out in meaningless games, Bumrah suffered a back stress fracture, was out of action for 11 months and India lost the T20 World Cup semifinal to England by 10 wickets without their spearhead.
Bumrah had a recurrence of the back injury in 2025 and since his return, the 32-year-old gives a lot of importance on workload management. That led to India’s all-format master dropping out of two crucial Test matches against England last year when the series was on the line.That didn’t go down too well with everyone who runs Indian cricket these days and there are already talks that the management wants him to play all the nine World Test Championship matches that India have in the rest of the cycle. The ODI World Cup is also in 2027 October in South Africa and Bumrah, who hasn’t played a single 50-over game since the 2023 World Cup final, needs to have some game-time in the format.That is a lot of cricket this cycle and Bumrah needs to be adequately rested to deliver on all formats, with his body not breaking down. For all practical purposes, the champion should be resting from Monday when MI play LSG till the end of IPL, but is Mumbai Indians listening?
