IPL 2023: Blow to Mumbai Indians as Jasprit Bumrah likely to miss tournament

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Mumbai, February 27: Jasprit Bumrah is reportedly set to miss Indian Premier League (IPL) 2023 and the World Test Championship (WTC) final as team management hope to get the pacer ready for the 2023 ODI World Cup in October.

Bumrah, who first suffered the lower stress fracture after the England tour in July 2022, has missed action for the past few months and has faced a lot of set backs in making his return.

He has already missed tournaments like Asia Cup 2022, T20 World Cup 2022 and the Border Gavaskar Trophy 2023, and as per reports, the pacer is likely to spend even more time on the sidelines.

According to a report in Cricbuzz, Bumrah's injury is quite serious as the BCCI sources have stated that he might miss action in the coming months which include the IPL 2023 and the WTC final.

Bumrah, who last played for the national side in September last year, was undergoing rehabilitation in the National Cricket Academy (NCA), and was earlier all set to return to competitive cricket with Sri Lanka ODIs last month but was ruled out later after failing to recover in time.

The 29-year-old was later expected to return for the ODI series against Australia. But with NCA planning not to rush him into action in a hurry as things have not panned out as exactly as planned, it comes as a blow to India and his IPL side Mumbai Indians.

IPL 2023 is scheduled to be held from March 31 to May 28, while the WTC final is scheduled to start on June 7 at the Oval, London.

Record champions Mumbai Indians will look to bounce back in IPL 2023 after finishing at the foot of the table last season, when they missed the services of England pacer Jofra Archer, who is expected to feature this season.

The Mumbai Indians had hoped to see Bumrah-Archer partnership fire them to another title, but that will now need to wait. With Bumrah likely to miss the season, who can Mumbai Indians opt as Archer's partner?

Mumbai Indians pace options

Most of the Mumbai Indians pace options are overseas players. Only uncapped Arjun Tendulkar, Arshad Khan and Akash Madhwal are the Indian options.

So, MI could opt for an overseas option in Jhye Richardson, Duan Jansen or Jason Behrendorff as the pace bowling partner for Archer. Even Cameron Green is an option, but the Australian all-rounder has himself been out of action with injury since December 2022.