IPL 2020: Mumbai Indians head coach Mahela Jayawardene provides injury updates on Jasprit Bumrah and Hardik Pandya
Mumbai Indians' head coach Mahela Jayawardene has provided injury updates on Jasprit Bumrah and Hardik Pandya, saying that the recovery of both players has been going well. Bumrah had suffered from a stress fracture in his lower back in September, while Hardik Pandya has been recovering from successful back surgery.
Both Jasprit and Hardik's rehabilitation is getting closely monitored by their IPL team, the Mumbai Indians. Revealing how both have been vital for the Indian team, Jayawardene expressed his happiness for both players who could return to playing for their national team ahead of either Sri Lanka or Australia's tour of India.
It's good. He (Bumrah) has started training. He was in Vizag (Visakhapatnam) bowling to the guys (Indian players). MI staff is closely monitoring his progress.
Hardik (Pandya) is (also) making good progress...(I'm) quite happy, hopefully they will play the Sri Lankan series (early January), or may be the Australian series (although) I am not sure how quickly they will be coming through. Injuries happen and it is about how best they recover and these two, I guess more than for Mumbai Indians, they are more valuable for Indian national team. It is important we manage all that.. (I'm) quite happy and everything is going right for us.
Both Jasprit Bumrah and Hardik Pandya have been pivotal in leading Mumbai Indians to becoming the most successful franchise in IPL. Bumrah has clinched 82 wickets in 77 matches since 2013 for the defending champions, while Hardik has amassed 1,068 runs with 42 wickets since 2015.
Jayawardene, focusing upon Jasprit Bumrah, expressed that the MI management hasn't put pressure upon Bumrah and praised his learning and evolving nature that has helped the franchise in achieving success.
I mean, that is always going to happen, but we don't put lot of pressure on Jasprit, saying that he has to be (always there). We have created a very good bowling unit around him (but) he delivers. You have to realize he is still young - Jasprit - so there is lot more to come from him. He is brilliant, he is learning -- every day he is evolving (which) is great.
We want to create a complete unit, put lot of emphasis on our bowling. Over the last few years the bowling unit has performed really well under pressure, some close matches we won, both (the) finals... defended low scores. We are trying to create that culture and Jasprit is part of that.
Mumbai Indians purchased hard-hitting batsman Chris Lynn at a steal of his base price ₹2 crores in the IPL 2020 Auction. When quizzed if he will open the innings for MI in the upcoming season, Jayawardene said:
I didn't say he (Lynn) will play as an opener, we will see. He is a squad player and we will see what we can do, it is always (good) to have options available.
We asked a lot of players to be flexible in their roles especially in T20, there are no fixed roles. We have a great combination in Quinton (De Kock) and Rohit (Sharma), they were brilliant last year. Lynn will bring something different, it all depends on how we want to use that.
Mumbai Indians purchased a total of six players in the IPL auction for the upcoming season, with Nathan Coulter-Nile as their most expensive purchase at ₹8 crores. Along with Chris Lynn, MI also signed Saurabh Tiwary, Mohsin Khan, Digvijay Deshmukh, and Prince Balwant Rai Singh.
