India Vs England 1st Test: Why Hasn’t Jasprit Bumrah Still Played A Single Home Test Match?

Despite playing 17-Test matches for India and debuting in 2018, Chepauk Test will be Bumrah’s first one on Indian soil. Know Why?

(File Photo/ Getty Images)

The Indian fast bowler - whose current rank is 9 in the ICC’s bowler’s rankings - Jasprit Bumrah is all set to play the first India vs England Test at Chennai. Surprisingly, this will be Bumrah’s first Test match on home soil. Previously, the fast bowler has played 17 Test matches, but all of these matches were played on foreign grounds. 

He made his Test debut against South Africa in January 2018. He also picked up a five-wicket haul in that series. Since his debut, India has played four Test series’ at home. But Bumrah missed all of them due to various reasons. Here in this article, we see the reason for Bumrah not being available for home games, despite performaning exceedingly well in the 17 Test matches he played abroad. 

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Since his Test debut in 2018:<br><br>❇️ 17 matches<br>❇️ 79 wickets<br>❇️ 21.59 average<br><br>But Jasprit Bumrah will be playing a Test in India for the FIRST time 👀<br><br>How will he fare against England? <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/INDvENG?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" rel='nofollow'>#INDvENG</a> <a href="https://t.co/qpx8gzhB0D" rel='nofollow'>pic.twitter.com/qpx8gzhB0D</a></p>&mdash; ICC (@ICC) <a href="https://twitter.com/ICC/status/1357267703820607488?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" rel='nofollow'>February 4, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Afghanistan one-off Test match - Jasprit Bumrah was rested in this fixture alongside Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma and Bhuvneshwar Kumar. This was Afghanistan’s debut Test match. Similarly he was also rested for the West Indies series of 2018, as an important series down-under in Australia was approaching. 

Remaining two tours were by South Africa and Bangladesh in 2019 and 2020, respectively. Bumrah was injured in both these series’ and thus wasn’t able to play a single game. He was also named in the initial squad that was announced for the South Africa series. He has been troubled due to a minor lower back fracture. 

But the upcoming India vs England 1st Teat match from February 5 at the MA Chidambaram Stadium could be the first time the fast-bowler would be coming out wearing the India-whites. He really did work hard for proving his critics wrong about their assessment regarding Bumrah’s ability to play red ball cricket.