The injury to star speedster Jasprit Bumrah earlier this week dealt a serious blow to India’s preparations for the forthcoming T20 World Cup. Fans are wondering who would replace the pacer because the BCCI has not yet announced a replacement. Rahul Dravid, Team India’s head coach, was questioned about whether Mohammed Shami would replace Bumrah for the major event after the third T20I match against South Africa, which Team India lost by 49 runs. “In terms of who the replacement for Bumrah would be, we will have a look, we have time till October 15 so Shami is obviously someone who is in the standbys. But obviously, he could not play this series for us, which would have been ideal. But he is at the NCA at the moment, we have to get reports on how he is recovering and what’s his status after 14-15 days of COVID is,” said Dravid during a post-match press conference.
“We will take a call. Once we get his report, we and the selectors can take the call on how we move forward on it. What do we expect from the guy? We just want him to play some good cricket, have fun and enjoy himself and do the best he can. It is all we can ask from people, do the best you can,” he stated further. Team India may have won the last T20I series against Australia and South Africa, but bowling towards the very end has become a significant issue for the Rohit Sharma-led team. It will be interesting to see who the management chooses to turn to for the World Cup now that Bumrah has been ruled out.
“Obviously, you keep trying to get better in all the departments of the game. Certainly, bowling at the death, to be fair, the wickets have been really flat and it has not been easy to bowl at the death, not just for our team but the other team as well. Australia and South Africa are the two sides with a lot of experience in their bowling lineup but they have struggled at the death as well,” said Dravid. “It is just not us, but yeah sure we have to look at ourselves. We need to see how we can improve and get better, this is one area where we would certainly want to improve because we know, as you play these big tournaments, margins can be really small and every run or boundary can matter,” he added.
