Former New Zealand pacer Shane Bond has advised that India should not play Jasprit Bumrah for ‘more than two Tests in a row’ during this summer’s tour to England. Bond warned that another injury to the Indian ace could be a ‘career ender’.
Bumrah hasn’t played since the fifth Test against Australia in Sydney in January, when he walked off for scans on Day 2. It was later diagnosed as a stress injury, forcing him to sit out of the Champions Trophy.
Bond, who had his fair share of injuries, warned that the transition from the Indian Premier League, starting March 22, to the new World Test Championship cycle ‘will be a risk.’
“He’s too valuable for the next World Cup and stuff. So you’d be looking at five Tests in England, I wouldn’t want to be playing him in any more than two in a row. Coming out of the back end of the IPL into a Test match is going to be a huge risk. And so how do they manage that is going to be key.
“They may say, look, it’s four Test matches in total. Or three. If we can get him through the English summer and he’s fit, we can probably then go with some confidence that we can carry him across the rest of the formats. So that’s hard because he is your best bowler, but if he has another injury in the same spot, that could be a career-ender, potentially, because I’m not sure you can have surgery on that spot again.”
India’s tour of England will include five Tests, to be played between June 28 and August 3.