No injury issues, Bumrah gets rest ahead of big season

The right-arm pace bowler is in his home city, where he grew up and his mother stays, and has decided to take time off to rest and tend to a personal matter before he gets into a gruelling season again in a bio-secure environment with the Indian Premier League, the tour of England and the World T20.

"There is no concern about him with regard to fitness. He just wanted to take time off and give himself some rest at his home and importantly tend to a very personal matter," said an official in the know of things.

The 27-year-old, who has emerged as India's strike bowler across formats over the last couple of years, faced a serious back injury in late 2019 and missed the last four months of that year recuperating.

He returned in early January, 2020 and played for a couple of months before Covid-19 lockdown brought Indian cricket to a standstill. With about a couple of months of no practice, Bumrah started to practice gradually while doing nets at the Gujarat College ground here along with Parthiv Patel.

Since lockdown has ended, however, Bumrah has been in the thick of things both for Mumbai Indians in the Indian Premier League as well as the India team in Tests and ODIs getting rested for the T20 Internationals in Australia.

The 27-year-old has bowled 277.1 overs in competitive cricket over the last five months.

The workload for India and his franchise in the past few months and the subsequent long season ahead with IPL, the tour of England and the World T20 has been an issue considering that his back faced problems in recent times.

However, the break will give him some respite.

Also, in the recent series, his workload has been very restricted due to pitches favouring the spinners. After bowling 36 overs in the first innings of the first Test, he has bowled just 12 overs across three innings of the two Tests he played. He missed the second Test in Chennai. He bowled six in the second innings of the first Test and six in the first innings of the third Test and was not called upon at all in the third Test's second innings.

The lack of overs for him prompted India skipper Virat Kohli at the end of the third Test to say, "Bumrah said 'I am getting workload management while playing'."