PremiumJasprit Bumrah's World Cup 2023 fate: R Ashwin's surprising disclosure amid Asia Cup return
Ravichandran Ashwin spoke about Jasprit Bumrah's possible India return and his chances of playing the World Cup 2023.
Last Updated: 05.32 PM, Jun 30, 2023
As time goes on, the talks surrounding Jasprit Bumrah's recovery and potential return to Team India have only seemed to deepen. According to a report from last week, Bumrah's rehabilitation at the National Cricket Academy (NCA) following a surgery he had for a stress fracture in his back is progressing according to plan. The pacer might return to play as early as the Ireland T20Is in August.
Two days later, news emerged that Bumrah was bowling 7 overs a day at the NCA and is lined up to play a few practice games.
While many fans were excited to see Bumrah recovering and gaining his form, news broke out that he was set to play the Asia Cup 2023 in September. However, now, adding icing to the cake Ravichandran Ashwin spilled the beans on the India pacer's return.
While addressing the World Cup 2023 fixtures and predicting India's matches against various opponents, Ashwin spoke about Bumrah.
"The last few games between India and Pakistan in the ICC events have been extraordinary, to say the least. I think we can expect another blockbuster India-Pakistan game," Ashwin said on his YouTube channel.
"It's going to be a very equally-balanced game because Pakistan also has a quality seam attack. For India, obviously, we are expecting Bumrah, maybe even Prasidh… all these guys to be fit. I don't know what the combination is going to look like but all in all, a great contest on hand."
Talking about the India vs Pakistan clash which will take place at Ahmedabad's Narendra Modi Stadium, Ashwin said he too is equally excited.
"The game I want to talk about is the one against Pakistan at Ahmedabad on October 15. Of course, it's going to be a sell-out. 130000 will be the capacity audience at the Narendra Modi Stadium. Even in the 2011 World Cup, Ahmedabad had happy memories at Ahmedabad. The same venue was called the Motera Stadium back then where he played our quarter-final against Australia and beat them. We qualified for the semifinal against Pakistan and went on to win that World Cup," added Ashwin.
"But from the Narendra Modi Stadium, we have some learning lessons from this year's IPL and some ODIs at this venue. From IPL, we know that this is Shubman Gill's home venue and he loves batting there. So he is really going to relish the game. During the IPL, the ball swung especially during the second innings of the game. Both Mohammed Shami and Hardik Pandya have enjoyed bowling here. Even Prasidh enjoyed bowling here during an ODI against West Indies. We defended 240-odd I think and ended up winning that game. So there has been a bit of lift and carry during the night. We are playing against Pakistan so I don't know how to weigh in the toss factor here. In other venues, we can choose to bowl first due to the dew but Ahmedabad is more of a catch-22 situation."