Credit: BCCI
Jasprit Bumrah, one of the greatest fast bowlers of his generation, hasn’t had the best time in regards to his fitness in the year 2025. After suffering a sudden back issue in early January, which forced him to pull out of the fifth and final Test of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy for India against Australia in Sydney, he hasn’t played each and every match for his national or franchise teams upon recovery.
Following his return to cricket in early April in Mumbai Indians (MI) colours in the middle of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025 season, he made the trip to England to participate in the five-match Test series against the hosts. In the build-up to the Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy, it was revealed that India won’t draft him in the playing in two out of five Tests, and the team ended up winning those two matches, to level the series 2-2.
With Jasprit Bumrah getting to pick and choose Test matches to play for India, some of the former cricketers have been quite critical of him and the management with Sanjay Manjrekar saying that he shouldn’t be the frontline pick for the team. It led to Aakash Chopra weighing in on the matter on his YouTube channel, name-dropping Manjrekar before stating that if you have a player of Bumrah’s level, he should play whenever he can.
He is 24-carat pure gold. He is the Kohinoor diamond: Aakash Chopra on Jasprit Bumrah
Chopra also went on to state if it were a batter needing to pick and choose matches to play, then it would be a problem, but in case of Bumrah, it shouldn’t be the case since fast bowlers are generally rotated in a series of three Tests or more. He also remarked, as per NDTV Sports, “There is no bowler like Bumrah. Don't push him forcibly towards early retirement because he is 24-carat pure gold. He is the Kohinoor diamond.”
“The longer he plays, the better it is. I don't think he will play too much Test cricket, but for however long he plays, I would say hold onto it. That's just my feeling,” Aakash Chopra added.
