‘Now, you can’t do that’ – Australia’s legendary gives stern advice to Jasprit Bumrah

India pacer Jasprit Bumrah has been injured since September last year. After playing the first T20I against Australia, he is yet to play a competitive game. In the recently-concluded white ball series against New Zealand, Bumrah was about to make his comeback. However, the doctor in the NCA advised to him more rest after assessing the pacer’s fitness.

Notably, the right-arm pacer was about to play in the upcoming Border-Gavaskar Trophy. The five-time Indian T20 League winner was set to make his comeback in the third Test. However, the Gujarat player has once again been ruled out of the series. While the 29-year-old continues to struggle with his injury woes, the legendary Australia pacer Jeff Thompson has made frank assessments of Bumrah’s career.

The Aussie started by saying that there is a lot of cricket being played compared his to playing days. Thompson added that they players used to get a lot of rest before the home season as they hardly played in winter.

“There is so much cricket. They play all year round. We didn’t do that. We used to play seasons, the summer season. Occasionally we would go to England for our winter. It was a long tour, four and a half months. But generally we just played the summer so we would gradually build up after Christmas full on. Because I knew I was going to get rest,” Thomson, who took 200 wickets in 51 Tests between 1973 and 1985, said on Revsportz.

Jasprit Bumrah needs to pace himself to be around: Jeff Thompson

The former Australia pacer further added that given the amount of cricket played these days, it is important for a bowler to pace himself around.

“Now, you can’t do that. So you have to pace yourself to be around. That’s why they have all those back up bowlers and they rest people. In our day we didn’t rest. If we had a rest someone else would take our spot. It is a matter of having to rest these days because it is a 12-month a year job.”