‘Bumrah has to work out what he wants to play, short formats or Tests’: Australia legend Jeff Thomson

Jasprit Bumrah’s injury woes has ruled him out of quiet a few important series including the T20 World Cup. It was back in September last year after the three-match T20I series against Australia that Bumrah had been ruled out of the T20 World Cup down under owing to a recurring back injury.
Australia fast bowling great Jeff Thomson has said that Bumrah may have to take a call on whether he wants to prioritise limited overs cricket or Tests so as to prolong his career.
“There is so much cricket. They play all year round. We didn’t do that. We used to play seasons, the summer season. Occasionally we would go to England for our winter. It was a long tour, four and a half months. But generally we just played the summer so we would gradually build up after Chrmas full on. Because I knew I was going to get rest,” Thomson was quoted as saying Revsportz.
“Now, you can’t do that. So you have to pace yourself to be around. That’s why they have all those back up bowlers and they rest people. In our day we didn’t rest. If we had a rest someone else would take our spot. It is a matter of having to rest these days because it is a 12-month a year job,” he added.
Stress reactions in the back can tend to cause long term problems for fast bowlers. Despite adequate rest and rehab being mandatory.

“Well, (Bumrah) has to work out what he wants to play, short formats or Test matches or both. If I think about if I was playing now, it would be very hard for me to play Test matches. Especially, when you get so much money in the short version of the game which just makes your longevity better. We didn’t have to think about money in our days because there was no money. Now it’s a huge business,” he further added.
“The only one who is going to look after you is yourself. So, you got to work out how long I am going to play for and how am I going to manage that because no one else is going to. I think you have to be more cunning these days in terms of workload and watch what you got to play. If you are good enough, they are going to pick you any way so you should be able to pull the strings,” he said.