Indian pace spearhead Jasprit Bumrah is set to be rested for three-match ODI series against England after being already given a break from the five-match T20I series. Bumrah has also been released from the squad for the upcoming fourth and final Test against England beginning at Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad from Thursday (March 4).
After India’s massive 10-wicket win in the third Test against England last week, Bumrah was also released from the Test squad for ‘personal reasons’, a leading cricket website reported that the Mumbai Indians paceman is likely to keep him out of the ODI series too. The ODI series will be played in a bio secure environment in Pune, starting March 23.
Bumrah’s unavailability from the entire white-ball leg against England gives India an opportunity to try out fast bowlers.
Varun Chakravarthy fails fitness test
The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) and team officials confirmed to the website that mystery spinner Varun Chakravarthy had failed a fitness test conducted at the National Cricket Academy (NCA) less than a week ago. The new fitness benchmarks require players to either complete a 2 km run in 8.5 minutes or scoring 17.1 in the Yo-Yo test.
The Tamil Nadu spinner failed to meet this mark and the 29-year-old spinner was then sent to Mumbai to play practice games after having spent three months at the NCA. The BCCI had sent about 35 players to the NCA for a fitness test and one more player who was named in the T20I squad against England has also failed the fitness test.
With about 10 days still to go for the T20I series, it’s possible that the player along with Chakravarthy could be sent for another round of Yo-Yo test. Varun was earlier picked in the T20I squad for the tour of Australia as well, on the back of impressive performances in the IPL 2020 for Kolkata Knight Riders. However, he was pulled out later due to an injury in the right shoulder which made it hard for him to throw.
