Guwahati, Oct 1: Pace spearhead Jasprit Bumrah is set to miss the T20 World Cup due to an injury but head coach Rahul Dravid on Saturday said he won’t go deep into his medical reports and will wait for an official confirmation regarding his availability for the showpiece in Australia.
India suffered a big setback when their pace spearhead Bumrah was ruled out of their final preparatory series against South Africa due to stress fracture in his lower back.
“We are awaiting the official confirmation on the next steps. As of now, he’s officially ruled out of this (SA) series. But we will see what happens over the next few days,” Dravid told reporters on the eve of the second T20I against South Africa.
Usually a stress fracture in the back takes about six months to heal completely but Dravid said they are still “hopeful”.
“Honestly, I’ve not gone deeply into the medical reports, I rely on the experts to tell me what it is. They ruled him out for this series and he’s being assessed. We will know in due course what happens in the future,” the 49-year-old said.
“Obviously till he’s completely ruled out, and we get an official confirmation that he’s ruled out, we will always be hopeful. We will always hope for the best just for us as a team and Jasprit as an individual.” Bumrah, who has been out of action since the India tour of England in July, had recently made a comeback during the home T20I series against Australia but the 28-year-old has been forced to head back to the National Cricket Academy for rehab again.
Bumrah’s spate of injuries, despite his workload being carefully looked after by the think-tank, has become a matter of debate.
Bumrah played all the 14 IPL matches for his franchise Mumbai Indians and since then he only featured in six Internationals in four months.
Doing rehab at the NCA, Bumrah made a comeback in the preceding Australia series where he played two matches and travelled with the team to Thiruvananthapuram for the 1st T20I against South Africa only to be ruled out ahead of the game.
The former India skipper said it’s normal to have injury issues and added they really work hard with their sports science team to manage the players’ workloads.
There has been a lot of debate on who is going to replace Bumrah if he is officially ruled out as only two weeks are left for their World Cup warm-up fixture against Australia.
But Dravid said they are in their comfort zone, having got all the skill sets for different conditions and rival sides in Australia.
Dravid said they have absolute clarity on the roles assigned to each of the players in the World Cup-bound squad. (PTI)
