The news of Jasprit Bumrah suffering a minor back stress fracture has sent shockwaves across the cricketing circles in India. The relationship between fast bowlers and stress fractures to the back is an old one with the most famous cases been Dennis Lillie, Shane Bond, Ian Bishop, and Waqar Younis.
Out of this Waqar Younis and Dennis Lillie came back stronger from their injuries and had long successful careers; while Bond and Bishop’s careers were marred by the back problem and left much to be desired. With young Bumrah suffering his first such injury, many former fast bowlers are giving advice as to what the Gujarat pacer must do in order to keep himself fit and still have the deadly accuracy he possesses with the ball.
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Former India fast bowler Manoj Prabhakar feels that a lack of run up and open chested action has led to Bumrah breaking down early in his career. He pointed out, “He (Bumrah) has such a small run-up, all the load falls on his lower back. As a bowler, you need to have a back-up (run-up). Even while you are throwing a javelin, you run-up to the delivery point building momentum. He doesn’t run. How will he survive? All good bowlers like Lillee (after comeback), Kapil Dev and Imran Khan had a good back-up.”
“Your back always suffers from an open-chested action. It (combined with a lack of run-up) is not for the long run. He will have to take a lot of precautions and will have to be a bit side-on,” he says. “You can’t relax with this action. He is neither round-arm nor side-on. This forces him to bowl fast, else he’ll get hammered. That puts a lot of strain on the back,” Prabhakar said about Bumrah’s open chested action.
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The former Delhi and India all-rounder felt that for Bumrah to keep himself injury-free for over a long time, Bumrah will have to build back-up—a smooth run-up to the point of delivery and a tweak in his action, making it side-on. He also felt that his new weapon of bowling outswingers had put additional pressure on his back, leading to him breaking down.
Prabhakar also felt that T20 cricket is leading to more injuries to the fast bowlers and explained how. “It is because you are dividing your four overs in one-, two-over spells. In longer formats, you bowl 6-7 overs at a stretch and your body is warmed up. In T20, it doesn’t happen that way. So you are always bowling without warming up,” explains Prabhakar.
(Hindustan Times inputs)
