Reports: Jasprit Bumrah was ‘okay’ but wasn’t picked for Champions Trophy

In an interesting turn of events, Indian ace pacer Jasprit Bumra’s reports came out to be okay. However, the Indian selectors and team management decided not to put stress on the pace spearhead in the ICC Champions Trophy, starting on February 19.

Interestingly, the star pacer hasn’t been in action since the final Test of the recently concluded Border Gavaskar Trophy in Sydney. He has been rehabilitating at the NCA in Bengaluru. Though he was initially named in the squad for the England ODI series, he later pulled out and was replaced by Harshit Rana.

"Bumrah was asked to off-load for five weeks after which his rehabilitation at NCA happened under strength & conditioning trainer Rajnikanth and physio Thulasi. The report sent by NCA head Nitin Patel clearly states that while he has completed his rehabilitation and scan reports seemed to be okay, it couldn't be concluded whether he would be bowling fit by the time the tournament starts. Hence the selectors didn't take any risk," a top BCCI source said as quoted by India Today.

"Nitin left the ball in Ajit's (chief selector Agarkar) court and hence no one would want to stick their necks out and take the risk of putting an unfit player in squad. If medical team doesn't green-light fully, how can the selection committee take that risk," the official added.

Furthermore, the Indian selection committee included Varun Chakaravarthy in place of Yashasvi Jaiswal for the showpiece event. India will head to Dubai on February 15 to start their preparations for the mega event.

A look at India’s squad for Champions Trophy 2025

Rohit Sharma (c), Shubman Gill (vc), Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, KL Rahul (wk), Rishabh Pant (wk), Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, Axar Patel, Washington Sundar, Kuldeep Yadav, Harshit Rana, Mohammed Shami, Arshdeep Singh, and Varun Chakaravarthy.

Non-travelling substitutes: Yashasvi Jaiswal, Shivam Dube, Mohammed Siraj.

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