Another back injury for Jasprit Bumrah in the same spot where he had surgery "could be a career-ender" according to former New Zealand fast bowler Shane Bond, whose career ended prematurely due to chronic back problems.
Bumrah has not played since he walked off for scans on the second afternoon of the New Year's Test in Sydney this year. What was reported as back spasms then turned to be a stress-related injury, which forced him to miss the Champions Trophy. Bumrah is currently at the BCCI's Centre of Excellence in Bengaluru doing rehab and there is no clarity yet on when he will be fully fit or whether he will start for Mumbai Indians (MI) at IPL 2025.
This is the first time Bumrah has suffered a back injury since he had surgery in March 2023. Bond, who has worked with Bumrah in the past - he was bowling coach with MI for several years - and is currently in India as bowling coach at Rajasthan Royals, said that Bumrah's workloads need to be managed conservatively to avoid another relapse.
"When he went off for scans, it was at Sydney, there was some messaging coming up around that he had sprains and stuff like that," Bond told ESPNcricinfo in a wide-ranging chat* during the Champions Trophy, when he was one of the experts on the analysis show Match Day. "I worried that it wasn't going to be a sprain, it might be a bony injury around that area [the back]. I thought he may struggle to make the Champions Trophy if it was."
Bond was probably the first fast bowler, at least this century, to undergo back surgery, which he had at 29, the same age at which Bumrah had his surgery. Despite persistent injuries Bond continued to play until he was 34 before deciding to retire, first from Tests and then from all formats in less than six months. In a chat with The Cricket Monthly in 2010, Bond said, "I broke if I played few games on the bounce" in first-class cricket and he was sick and tired of doing rehab.
The "danger" zone where fast bowlers suffer injuries, according to Bond, is when they quickly transition from T20 to Test cricket. And that, Bond highlighted, would be his primary concern for Bumrah too, considering India will travel to England to play five-Test series in June barely a month after the IPL ends on May 25.
"Look, I think Booms will be fine, but it's just that [workload] management [matters]," Bond said. "Looking at the tours and the schedule going forward, where are the opportunities to give him a break, but really where are the danger periods? And often it is that the [transition from] IPL to the Test championship will be a risk.
"Anywhere you transition from particularly T20 to a Test match, it's challenging. If you are playing a one-day series, it's generally not too bad. You will play three games a week, you will have a practice, you are sort of in around that 40 overs [range], that's pretty close to a Test match week anyway. But in T20, particularly in the IPL, when you might be playing three games in a week, there's two days of travel, you might get one training [session], you are sort of bowling 20 overs maybe if you're lucky. That's sort of half of a Test match load or even under a half of, which then is a big jump and you are not bowling back-to-back days. That's a big jump when you transition out of that."
India's schedule for the England tour is a tight one with five Tests between June 28 and August 3. Bond said that India cannot give Bumrah the kind of workload he carried during the 2024-25 Australia tour, which also comprised five Tests. Overall, Bumrah bowled 151.2 overs in nine innings including 52 in the Boxing Day Test in Melbourne, his most in a Test match.
Going forward, Bond said, he would not want Bumrah to play more than two consecutive Tests at one go.
"He's too valuable for the next World Cup and stuff. So you'd be looking at five Tests in England, I wouldn't want to be playing him in any more than two in a row. Coming out of the back end of the IPL into a Test match is going to be a huge risk. And so how do they manage that is going to be key.
"They may say, look, it's four Test matches in total. Or three. If we can get him through the English summer and he's fit, we can probably then go with some confidence that we can carry him across the rest of the formats. So that's hard because he is your best bowler, but if he has another injury in the same spot, that could be a career-ender, potentially, because I'm not sure you can have surgery on that spot again."
With the Indian domestic season over, the IPL is the only competitive series Bumrah can feature in before the England tour. While Bond felt the IPL "maybe touch and go" for Bumrah, he said "there will be an element of risk depending on the intensity that he's bowling at by the time he gets back".
Bond said that it was also Bumrah's responsibility to work in tandem with the decision-makers in Indian cricket to chart out a safe path that would help him extend his career. "So it's going to take some good management and just some open conversations with the player and say, look, we are doing this with your best interest in your career. Any player who's gone through that, and having myself [gone through it], you are desperate to play, but you also understand there are some risks at certain times and you have to make some compromises."
* The full interview will be published on ESPNcricinfo later this month.