Indian pacers' injury woes can hurt bigger plans too

For India to have a big pool of quality speedsters to call up, it is important they all are fit and firing

- Somshuvra Laha

KOLKATA: Only once has Jasprit Bumrah missed an entire IPL season. And though he is reportedly set to just miss the first few rounds this time, Bumrah's absence for Mumbai Indians has to be accepted as the price paid for getting him for an entire five-Test tour of Australia. It's become a way of life for India's fast bowling bench too nowadays; it was probably fine a couple of years back since Mohammed Siraj, Mohammed Shami and Umesh Yadav (in that order) were readily deployed according to the surface with Akash Deep, Prasidh Krishna and Mukesh Kumar gradually joining the ranks.

That scenario has changed drastically. Siraj has gone off the boil, Shami's endurance has been slipping, Krishna is injury prone and Umesh is off the radar. That leaves Kumar and Deep next in line, though Gautam Gambhir has tried to add depth to pace by blooding Harshit Rana in Australia.

Rohit Sharma had flagged this issue before the home series against New Zealand, calling for urgent introspection and a quick resolution. "We want to create a bench strength where tomorrow if anything happens to anyone, we are not worried, and we don't want to be worried or too heavily reliant on a few individuals. That's not the right thing to do," he had said last October.