Bumrah has taken only four wickets in 13 matches for MI this season.
Ahead of MI’s last league stage game, head coach Mahela Jayawardene revealed that Bumrah played with an unspecified niggle during India’s victorious T20 World Cup 2026 campaign, which subsequently derailed his rhythm and execution during the ongoing IPL season.
"(It is due to) a combination of a few things. Coming back from the (T20) World Cup, he had a slight niggle which he played with through the World Cup, so we gave him adequate rest to come back," Jayawardene told reporters on the eve of MI’s match against Rajasthan Royals at the Wankhede Stadium.
In fact, MI allowed the India internationals—Bumrah, Hardik Pandya, Suryakumar Yadav, and Tilak Varma—to join the squad only five days prior to the start of the IPL 2026 season.
Jayawardene stated that Bumrah's initial dip in speed was a strategic "gradual build-up" to manage the injury he carried from the T20 World Cup.
"(In) the first 4-5 games, it was a gradual build-up for him to get over that niggle he had. You could see the pace was dropped because of that, and now he's back to his pace. The last 4-5 games have been good.
"But obviously, when you're going through something like that, you do lose a little bit of sharpness of execution and all that because you're fighting something else. But I think health-wise, it's 100 per cent (but it is) unfortunate that the season is (now) over for us," Jayawardene said.
Jasprit Bumrah played a pivotal role in India’s T20 World Cup title defence. Skipper Suryakumar Yadav used him in different phases and the strike fast bowler certainly delivered for the team, finishing as the tournament’s joint-leading wicket taker with 14 scalps from eight outings.
Bumrah returned with figures of 4/15 in the final against New Zealand at Ahmedabad and posted an economy of 6.21 throughout the competition. Deservingly, he was named Player-of-the-Match in the title clash.
Jayawardene noted that despite Bumrah's struggles, opposition teams have played him cautiously.
"The teams have not taken too much risk against him in certain situations. They've played him out because we haven't been able to create pressure around him as well, in the sense that the other bowlers haven't been able to create that pressure that we needed to," he remarked.
Jayawardene said MI tried to work around Bumrah's workload. "(We have had) good conversations, and Bumrah is very experienced now. It was a collective conversation with his training staff, like where do we push him and how do we -- there was workload management as well -- how much he could bowl in nets in preparation," he said.
"Initially, we tried to tactically also bowl him in situations so that he's not under pressure. But being the lead bowler, he was always under pressure, like bowling at the death.
"But we used him in different ways this season so that it gives him a bit more freedom. But he understands that; he comes back and he smiles and says, 'coach, it didn't work, let's try something different kind of thing'."
According to Jayawardene, Bumrah is back to his best and now there are no major concerns. "But I wouldn't worry about Booms, I think he's in good spirit and he will come back strong. We all learn from these kind of seasons and manage all that. But one thing for sure, there's no doubt in the effort that he put in during these six to eight weeks to get back to where he should be," he said.
"The last few games, he was top notch. He was all back again, bowling at that 140 kmph mark, he was nailing the yorkers. He had a few issues with his run-up, purely because it was with the niggle that he had."
Jayawardene revealed Bumrah went back to work on his run-up to fix his no-ball issues during long breaks.
"He was bowling quite a few no-balls this season, if you remember -- that has to do with the build-up, so that is something that he again went back and worked on. Whenever we had long breaks, he was working on that."
"I can't take anything away from his work ethic and what he puts off the field. It's just that it didn't happen on the field. But we've had good conversations and we know what we need to do. We tried, but it didn't work. But we just need to move on from that," he said.
(With PTI Inputs)