Jasprit Bumrah (BCCI/IPL Photo)
New Delhi: Mumbai Indians head coach Mahela Jayawardene on Saturday revealed that Jasprit Bumrah has bounced back from this year’s T20 World Cup, which India won, to IPL 2026, and this was one of the reasons behind the disappointing season in the league.
Jayawardene said Bumrah did not get enough time to recover after the World Championship, which affected his performance.Bumrah has managed just four wickets in 13 matches for Mumbai Indians, and his poor form was one of the main reasons behind the disappointing IPL 2026 campaign.
The five-time champions have already exited the tournament after winning only four of 13 matches and losing nine.The 32-year-old was struggling with the injury during the first phase of IPL 2026, Jayawardene said.“(Due to) a combination of things. After he came back from the (T20) World Cup, he had a minor discomfort that he played with during the World Cup, so we gave him enough rest to come back,” Jayawardene told reporters on the eve of MI’s final league match against Rajasthan Royals.In fact, Mumbai Indians have allowed their two Indian internationals – Bumrah, the skipper
Hardik Pandya
and Suryakumar Yadav and Tilak Varma – to join the pre-season camp just five days before the start of IPL 2026 on March 28.
According to Jayawardene, Bumrah’s dip in pace during the early stages of the IPL was because the player was going through a “gradual build-up”.“(In) the first 4-5 games, it was a gradual build-up for him to overcome that nuisance he was having. You could see the pace drop because of that, and now he’s back to his pace. The last 4-5 games have been good.“But obviously, when you go through something like that, you lose a little bit of the sharpness of execution and it’s all because you’re fighting something else.
“But I think from a health standpoint, it’s 100 percent unfortunate (but) the season is over (now) for us,” Jayawardene said.It has been a tough season for Bumrah, who also featured in four of the five T20Is that India played against the New Zealand national cricket team ahead of the T20 World Cup.Bumrah finished the World Cup as the joint highest wicket-taker alongside Varun Chakravarthy with 14 wickets, including a match-winning 4/15 in the final against New Zealand, while playing eight of India’s nine matches in the tournament.The former Sri Lanka captain said that opposition teams also treated Bumrah with caution despite his struggles.“Teams didn’t take much risk against him in certain situations. They played him because we couldn’t create pressure around him as well, meaning the other bowlers couldn’t create that pressure that we needed.”Jayawardene said MI tried to manage Bumrah’s workload carefully during the season.“(We had) good conversations, and Bumrah is very experienced now. It was a group conversation with his coaching staff, like where do we push him and how – there was workload management as well – how far can he bowl in the nets in preparation,” Jayawardene said.“Initially, we also tried to bowl him tactically in situations so that he doesn’t get pressure. But being the main bowler, he was always under pressure, like bowling at the death.“But we have used him in different ways this season to give him more freedom. But he understands that; he comes back and smiles and says: ‘Coach, it didn’t work, let’s try something different’.”Jayawardene believes Bumrah is now back in full rhythm and there are no long-term concerns.“But I don’t worry about Poms, I think he’s in good spirits and he’ll come back strong. We all learn from this kind of season and manage it all.”
But one thing is for sure, there is no doubt about the effort he has put in over these six or eight weeks to get back to where he should be.“In the last few games, he’s been top-class. He’s come back again, bowling 140kph, and he’s been outspinning the yorkers. He had some issues in the lead-up, just because of the malaise he was in.”Jayawardene also revealed that Bumrah has been working on his off-ball issues during the season.“He’s been playing a fair number of off-balls this season, if you remember – that has to do with the build-up, so that’s something he’s come back to and worked on. Whenever we’ve had long breaks, he’s been working on that.”“I can’t take anything away from his work ethic and what he puts off off the field. It’s just that it didn’t happen on the field. But we had good conversations and we know what we have to do. We tried, but it didn’t work out. But we just need to move on from that,” he said.