When the Indian captain was leading the Mumbai Indians (MI) in the 2023 edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL), Rohit Sharma said – For the last six to eight months, I am used to playing without Jasprit Bumrah. Rohit’s Mumbai Indians played the entire IPL season without pacer Bumrah and the 5-time winners made it to the playoffs despite fast bowling being their biggest weakness.
Ravindra Jadeja also remained out in T20 World Cup
Rohit & Co. did not get the services of Ravindra Jadeja and Bumrah in the T20 World Cup. The Asian giants were then without Bumrah, Rishabh Pant, Shreyas Iyer and KL Rahul in the final of the ICC World Test Championship (WTC). The same old injury problems have plagued the Rahul Dravid-coached team. With Bumrah already injured, it was decided to rest Mohammed Shami for the Windies tour, while Umesh Yadav was dropped from the squad.
Questions on bowlers and Rohit Sharma’s spilled pain
When Rohit was asked about taking the field with an inexperienced bowling attack in the Caribbean, he said – We have seen that fast bowlers have taken a lot of wickets here. But it is what it is. Players get injured and unfortunately we have to rotate them. We don’t have a line up of fast bowlers. There are a lot of bowlers injured in India. We need to manage what we have. This is the reason why our experienced bowlers could not come on this tour.
Pacer Mohammed Siraj has been the pivot of India’s pace attack in the Caribbean this season. Having played 19 Tests, Siraj is the most experienced fast bowler in the current Indian squad for the West Indies series. Fast bowler Siraj is accompanied by Shardul Thakur (9), Jaydev Unadkat (2), Navdeep Saini (2) and Mukesh Kumar. The captain said – Jaidev is not new. He made his debut 10-12 years ago. Mukesh Kumar has consistently done well in domestic cricket. After the two-match Test series, Team India also has to play 3 One Day Internationals (ODIs) and five T20 matches against the Caribbean team.