Why Jasprit Bumrah struggled in IPL 2026? Mahela Jayawardene reveals shocking reason

Jasprit Bumrah (BCCI/IPL Photo)

NEW DELHI: Mumbai Indians head coach Mahela Jayawardene on Saturday revealed that Jasprit Bumrah carried a niggle from this year’s T20 World Cup, which India won, into IPL 2026, and that was one of the reasons behind the pacer’s underwhelming season in the league. Jayawardene said Bumrah did not get enough recovery time after the global tournament, which affected his performances. Bumrah has managed just four wickets in 13 matches for Mumbai Indians, and his poor form has been one of the major reasons behind the franchise’s disappointing IPL 2026 campaign. The five-time champions have already been knocked out of the tournament after winning only four of their 13 matches and losing nine. Jayawardene said the 32-year-old was battling the injury during the early phase of IPL 2026. “(It is due to) a combination of a few things. Coming back from the (T20) World Cup, he had a slight niggle which he played with through the World Cup, so we gave him adequate rest to come back,” Jayawardene told reporters on the eve of MI’s final league game against Rajasthan Royals. In fact, Mumbai Indians allowed their India internationals - Bumrah, skipper Hardik Pandya , Suryakumar Yadav and Tilak Varma - to join the pre-season camp only five days before the start of IPL 2026 on March 28. According to Jayawardene, Bumrah’s reduced pace during the early stages of the IPL was because the pacer was going through a “gradual build-up.” “(In) the first 4-5 games, it was a gradual build-up for him to get over that niggle he had. You could see the pace was dropped because of that, and now he's back to his pace. The last 4-5 games have been good. "But obviously, when you're going through something like that, you do lose a little bit of sharpness of execution and all that because you're fighting something else. But I think health-wise, it's 100 per cent (but it is) unfortunate that the season is (now) over for us,” Jayawardene said. It has been a demanding season for Bumrah, who had also featured in four of the five T20Is India played against New Zealand national cricket team before the T20 World Cup. Bumrah ended the World Cup as joint-highest wicket-taker alongside Varun Chakravarthy with 14 wickets, including a match-winning 4/15 in the final against New Zealand, while playing eight of India’s nine matches in the tournament. The former Sri Lanka captain said opposition teams had also approached Bumrah cautiously despite his struggles. “The teams have not taken too much risk against him in certain situations. They've played him out because we haven't been able to create pressure around him as well, in the sense that the other bowlers haven't been able to create that pressure that we needed to,” he said. Jayawardene said MI tried to carefully manage Bumrah’s workload through the season. “(We have had) good conversations, and Bumrah is very experienced now. It was a collective conversation with his training staff, like where do we push him and how do we -- there was workload management as well -- how much he could bowl in nets in preparation,” Jayawardene said. “Initially, we tried to tactically also bowl him in situations so that he's not under pressure. But being the lead bowler, he was always under pressure, like bowling at the death. “But we used him in different ways this season so that it gives him a bit more freedom. But he understands that; he comes back and he smiles and says, ‘coach, it didn't work, let's try something different kind of thing’." Jayawardene believes Bumrah is now back to full rhythm and there are no long-term concerns. "But I wouldn't worry about Booms, I think he's in good spirit and he will come back strong. We all learn from these kind of seasons and manage all that. But one thing for sure, there's no doubt in the effort that he put in during these six or eight weeks to get back to where he should be,” he said. “The last few games, he was top notch. He was all back again, bowling that 140 kmph mark, he was nailing the yorkers. He had a few issues with his run-up, purely because it was with the niggle that he had.” Jayawardene also revealed that Bumrah had been working on his no-ball issues during the season. “He was bowling quite a few no-balls this season, if you remember -- that has to do with the build-up, so that is something that he again went back and worked on. Whenever we had long breaks, he was working on that." "I can't take anything away from his work ethic and what he puts off the field. It's just that it didn't happen on the field. But we've had good conversations and we know what we need to do. We tried, but it didn't work. But we just need to move on from that," he said.

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