Jasprit Bumrah Unlikely to Play All Five Tests vs England, Confirms Ajit Agarkar

Jasprit Bumrah Unlikely to Play All Five Tests vs England: India's Golden Arm Bumrah will likely not feature in all five Tests that get underway from June 20 at Headingley.

According to Ajit Agarkar, the chief selector of India, medical officials have advised that Bumrah is to not play several Tests consecutively under workload management.

The matter is of a precautionary nature: Bumrah developed a stress reaction in the back during the fifth Test against Australia at Sydney in January. The event deprived him of bowling after merely applying his foot on the pitch on the second day.

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He had missed the 2025 Champions Trophy and only returned in April during the IPL 2025 season with the Mumbai Indians, who have qualified for the playoffs.

"I don't think he [Bumrah] will be available for all five Tests, the physios and the doctors have told us," Agarkar said while announcing India's Test squad on Saturday. "Whether it's four or three [Tests], we will see how the series goes and how his body can take the workload. Needless to say how important he is, even if he's fit for three or four Tests, he's going to win us a few Test matches. So we are just glad that he is fit and that little setback that he had in Australia wasn't too bad. He's back playing - I know it's T20 cricket - at the moment, but we've seen what he's doing in the IPL. We are just happy that he's part of the squad."

The Test series will be the third from Bumrah's side on English soil where he is alleged to have 37 wickets in eight matches, registering an economy of 23.78 and 51.9 strike rate (not including the 2021 World Test Championship final); hence, Agarkar..."If his back was alright, he should have been among the names considered for Test captaincy post Rohit Sharma's retirement in April".

Bumrah has led India in three Tests: a one-off Test at Edgbaston in 2022; the Perth Test against Australia last year, where he was instrumental in the Indian victory; and the Sydney Test. He was vice-captain for the Australia tour but stepped up to lead the team when Rohit missed out on the First and Fifth Tests of that series.

Agarkar said Shubman Gill was the "unanimous" choice for Test captaincy among both selectors and the BCCI.

"Booms [Bumrah], because he led in Australia, he was the vice-captain for, but once he's not going to be available for all the Test matches (he couldn't be part of the captaincy conversation)," Agarkar said. "He is more important to us as a player. We want him fit. There's always that extra burden when you are managing 15-16 other people. There's a lot that it takes out of you. We'd rather have him bowling as well as he does than putting that extra burden on him."

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"He is aware of it," Agarkar said. "We've had a chat with him and he's okay with it. He knows where his body's at and he'd rather look after himself and be bowling fit. It was more his workload management and having him fit as a bowler, more than anything else."

Since March 2023, the year of his back surgery, Bumrah has been lighter in the workload department so as not to aggravate an injury that might end his career. But the workloads in Australia peaked while he bowled 152.1 overs in five Tests, claiming 32 wickets at a strike rate of 28.3 and average just above 13. Scans confirmed back spasms in Sydney, but when he returned to India, a stress reaction was diagnosed.

Endorsing the conservative management of this work load was former New Zealand quick, Shane Bond, who was forced into retirement by chronic back problems. "If he had another injury to that very area of the back, it could very well signal the end of his career," he warned.

Bond said the "biggest red flag" for fast bowlers is the short time transition they give themselves coming out of T20 to Tests- the first Test against England starting just 13 days after IPL ends on June 3. "He's too valuable for the next World Cup and stuff. So you'd be looking at five Tests in England, I wouldn't want to be playing him in any more than two in a row."

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