Reports: Bumrah's Champions Trophy doubt looms as BCCI plays waiting game

Team India have had a successful ODI series against England so far where they not only claimed consecutive wins in Nagpur and Cuttack, but they have also sealed the series already. However, amid some great performances from the team in this home series, the apex cricket governing body, BCCI (Board of Control for Cricket in India) has been sweating it out over the fitness issues of premier pacer, Jasprit Bumrah.

Notably, the star pacer was recently left out of the Indian side for the three-match series due to back issues. However, as per the latest developments, it was revealed that Bumrah was about to start his rehabilitation at the National Cricket Academy (NCA), in Bengaluru. For the unversed, the deadline to announce the final squad is February 12.

This has already resulted in curiosity among the fans and experts about whether the T20 World Cup player of the tournament and the ICC cricketer of the year will be fit enough for the Champions Trophy 2025 edition. Notably, the marquee event is just nine days away as it is scheduled to kickstart on February 19.

'Even if there is 1% chance, BCCI is likely to wait' - Source on Bumrah's comeback chances

In the same vein, recently, a source close to the Indian board revealed that Bumrah will soon start his rehab including some light bowling. He also added that the board was willing to play the waiting game if there was even a one percent chance of the fiery pacer achieving the required fitness to become part of India's squad for the Champions Trophy.

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“Even if there is a 1% chance, the BCCI is likely to wait. They did the same with Hardik Pandya as they waited for close to two weeks before getting Prasidh Krishna as a replacement. Even when Shubman Gill was down with dengue, they didn't have any thoughts of looking for a replacement. Yes, those two incidents happened during the campaign but approach with Bumrah could well be no different. This is just the deadline to submit the squad and they could approach the Event Technical Committee at a later stage to seek a replacement if he fails to regain fitness," a source said as quoted by Times of India.

India squad for Champions Trophy 2025:

Rohit Sharma (c), Shubman Gill (vc), Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, KL Rahul, Hardik Pandya, Axar Patel, Washington Sundar, Kuldeep Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Shami, Arshdeep Singh, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Rishabh Pant and Ravindra Jadeja.