Team India are sweating over the fitness of their pace spearhead Jasprit Bumrah ahead of the ICC Champions Trophy 2025, slated to be held in Pakistan and UAE from February 19 to March 9.
The right-arm quick has been dealing with a back issue since the fifth and final BGT Test against Australia in Sydney last month.
While Bumrah has been named in India's Champions Trophy squad, his participation in the showpiece tournament depends on fitness clearance.
With February 11 being the deadline to finalize the Champions Trophy squad, the BCCI is racing against time to take a call on the ace pacer.
According to a TOI report, Bumrah recently underwent scans and thorough assessment for the back injury under the watchful eyes of the BCCI medical team at the National Cricket Academy in Bengaluru.
The report further claimed that the BCCI is likely to wait for Bumrah to regain complete fitness, even if it means taking a partially-ready fast bowler to the Champions Trophy.
"Even if there is a 1% chance, the BCCI is likely to wait. They did the same with Hardik Pandya as they waited for close to two weeks before getting Prasidh Krishna as a replacement. Even when Shubman Gill was down with dengue, they didn't have any thoughts of looking for a replacement. Yes, those two incidents happened during the campaign but approach with Bumrah could well be no different. This is just the deadline to submit the squad and they could approach the Event Technical Committee at a later stage to seek a replacement if he fails to regain fitness," TOI quoted a source as saying.
Bumrah is widely regarded as the best pacer in the world across formats. Hence, the Indian board is likely to go the extra mile to have him ready for the tournament, even if it means seeing him miss the initial few matches.
The speedster was asked to avoid doing any exercise for about five weeks as the BCCI medical team worked on his back injury. It has now been reported that Bumrah is set to start his rehabilitation process at the NCA.
Depending upon how quickly he progresses, the BCCI will take a call on his participation in the Champions Trophy. However, the board is unlikely to ignore him from the final Champions Trophy squad.
As clarity is awaited on Bumrah's case, India are expected to include mystery spinner Varun Chakaravarthy in their Champions Trophy squad.
"Clearly during the series it presents us an opportunity to play him at some stage and see what he is capable of. Right now we are not thinking about whether we are going to take him or not but definitely he will be in contention. If things plan out really well for us and he does what is required then definitely there is something that we need to think about," India captain Rohit Sharma had said in a presser ahead of the first ODI against England.
