The Indian contingent for the T20 World Cup – 14 squad players and a large support staff – landed in Australia on Friday. India will play a couple of intra-squad matches followed by two warm-up matches against hosts Australia and New Zealand before they take on Pakistan for their first Super 12 match on October 23.
The selectors are yet to name a replacement for fast bowler Jasprit Bumrah, who was ruled out of the tournament due to a back injury. Bumrah had been having back injury issues for the last couple of years, and in the past three months it seems to have become unmanageable.
Bumrah missed two months of action from mid-July to mid-September, including missing the Asia Cup. He returned and played in a couple of T20I vs Australia before being ruled out of the South Africa series and the T20 World Cup. This is a major dent to India as not only Bumrah is their best bowler, but also that the death bowling in the past month has been in a dire state in his absence.
Spineless fans troll Sanjana Ganesan for Jasprit Bumrah’s injury
Meanwhile, a section of fans trolled Sanjana Ganesan, Jasprit Bumrah’s wife who works in the broadcasting team with the International Cricket Council (ICC). Sanjana will be part of the ICC as a broadcaster during the T20 World Cup, so she flew to Australia earlier this week and posted a photo of herself from the plane.
However, what she perhaps never would have imagined, Sanjana got trolled and mocked by a section of awful Indian fans. These people bombarded Sanjana’s comments section with mentions of Bumrah not flying to Australia for the mega-event.
Look for yourself some of the shameless comments:
Not the Bumrah we wanted in World cup🥲 https://t.co/lwZe2tkXHl
— 🌻 (@IAmGrooottttt) October 7, 2022
Not the Bumrah we wanted for the world cup. 😭#bumrah #T20WorldCup https://t.co/sS87dQRqLx
— AMIT DAS (@Sir_AD28) October 7, 2022
ghar baithe injured kar diya hamare boom boom ko😠😡 usko ghar baitha ke khud Australia ja rhi ho
— Rohit.Bishnoi (@The_kafir_boy_2) October 7, 2022
Your husband was more important than u in that hemisphere but unfortunately…
— CROW (@Brookly88040932) October 7, 2022
Bumraah se kitchen ka kaam kam karaya karooo
— ऽum!t (@UN_PrEdiTAble_) October 7, 2022
Meanwhile, Mohammed Shami is the likeliest candidate to replace Bumrah in the squad. However, Shami, who hasn’t played a T20I since last year, is still recovering from the covid-19 and is currently at the NCA.
Deepak Chahar, who is also in the reserves along with Shami, is a contender. India might also add Mohammed Siraj and Umesh Yadav on a plane to Australia soon.
Former head coach Ravi Shastri said that Shami has been to Australia plenty of times for Test tours in recent years, so he seems the apt replacement of Bumrah.
“His (Shami’s) experience precisely,” said Shastri. “India has been there (in Australia) a lot in six years and he (Shami) has been an integral part of all those tours and that experience counts.”
