‘Never thought it was all over’: Jasprit Bumrah says he is ready for World Cup | Cricket News

Returning to competitive cricket after 327 days, spending countless hours on the surgeon’s table, rehab booths and practice nets, Jasprit Bumrah sounded calm and relaxed, as though he had never been away from the game. There was neither a hint of nervousness nor over-excitement, as he captains India to the first of the three T20I series against Ireland on Friday.
During the lay-off, he missed cricket, but never entertained negative thoughts. “I never thought that it was all over or it was my dark phase. I was thinking about how to solve the problem that was in front of me,” he says, in a measured tone.
Rather than fretting about his injury, worrying whether he could reclaim his peak fitness, he says he was thinking about the recovery process. “Sometimes when it takes time for your injuries to heal, it becomes frustrating. But instead of having self doubts, I was thinking how I can recover faster and make a return,” he says.
In a sense, the time away from the game, he says, refreshed his mind, unburdening him from the rigours of competitive cricket. “Probably after 10-11 years, this is the first time in summer I was at home and I spoke to my mother about it. I looked at it as off-season, got a lot of time to spend with my family. You miss some important tournaments as well, but that’s something that you cannot control, so you can’t be really frustrated about it. You have to respect the body when it needs time to heal,” he reflects.

💬 💬 “Very happy to be back.”
Captain Jasprit Bumrah – making a comeback – takes us through his emotions ahead of the #IREvIND T20I series. #TeamIndia | @Jaspritbumrah93 pic.twitter.com/IR9Rtp26gi
— BCCI (@BCCI) August 17, 2023
There was no haste to make a comeback. There are several cautionary tales of fast bowlers being hurried back into intense cricket, only to break down. None more recent than the case of England tearaway Jofra Archer, whose premature return for a limited-over series in South Africa and the IPL resulted in him over-straining and injuring again, almost ruling him out of England’s World Cup defence.
Bumrah being such a pivotal figure in the team, a generational, near indispensable talent, it might have been tempting to rush him back to marquee tournaments, as they futilely tried before the T20 World Cup in Australia last year. But thereafter, there has been no haste to pull back into international cricket, even if it meant that he had to sit out of the Indian Premier League or the Test series against Australia that preceded it. The endeavor was to make him reclaim his peak match-fitness just in time for the World Cup.
It means he will have to make the best out of three T20 games and Asia Cup, where he could feature in a maximum of six games. But Bumrah says he has been bowling with the World Cup in mind: “We were mindful of the fact there is no Test cricket till the ODI World Cup. In my rehab as well, I was not preparing for a T20 game. I was always preparing for the World Cup competition. I have been bowling 10, 12 and even 15 overs. So I have bowled more overs, that way it becomes easier when less bowling is required. We kept that in mind that we are preparing for one-day competition and not a four-over competition. I have lots of overs under my belt.”

Apart from bowling at the nets and playing practice games at the NCA, he has been training with the Gujarat team too. “I am doing normal bowling only. It’s not that I am holding back. When my rehab was done, I went home and even practiced with the Gujarat team. I have done a lot of net sessions at a lot of places, played a few practice matches as well. So there’s no restrictions and I am not holding back,.” he explains
Resultantly, he feels has regained sufficient rhythm, though aware that he has to keep adding more bowling miles to reach optimal sharpness before the World Cup. “From where you left, you are are little down and you keep working your way up. You have to keep working your way up,” he says.

A two-ball nets footage reassured that he has not lost much of his pace or sharpness. One was a devilish bouncer that tied Ruturaj Gaikwad in knots that he kept away awkwardly; the other was a searing toe-crusher that Yashasvi Jaiswal negotiated with a last-second bat-jam. The 14-second clip was watched with a heave of relief the Indian cricket fraternity. For he is arguably one of their most potent, as well as reliable, weapons in the Indian team, someone who could influence the match at any time, with the old or new ball, at the start, middle, or at the death. He was dearly missed in the T20 World Cup and World Test Championship. But the biggest prize of them is winning the World Cup at home.

Bumrah, though, is not someone crushed the weight of expectations. He has been someone who has met both success and failure with a warm smile on his face. You don’t see him resort to the excesses, even he nabs the wickets of key batsmen in match-defining moments. Equanimity has been a characteric trait of his. So he unbothered dizzying expectations around him. “I don’t take any pressure of expectations and neither do I put unrealic expectations about myself,” he says.
With a chuckle, he says: “Everyone else’s expectations are their problems, not mine. My aim is to enjoy the game, prepare myself at my best and put my best foot forward. So I am doing that and hopefully everything will take care of itself.” Typical Bumrah, and that is what millions of cricket fans world around would want to see on Friday, a typical Bumrah unleashing dread in the mind of batsmen, wreaking havoc and winning matches.