Jasprit Bumrah played T20 WC with niggle, but top-notch after pace drop in early part of IPL: MI head coach Mahela Jayawardene

Mumbai: Managing a niggle that Jasprit Bumrah carried from this year's T20 World Cup into the ongoing IPL season resulted in the pace spearhead losing his "sharpness" despite Mumbai Indians giving him enough recuperation time, revealed head coach Mahela Jayawardene here on Saturday.

Bumrah's reduced effectiveness meant that he has just four wickets to show from 13 games for MI, and Jayawardene said the 32-year-old was fighting that unspecified injury in the earlier part 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 their last game in this IPL against Rajasthan Royals.

In fact, MI allowed the India internationals in their line-up -- Bumrah, skipper Hardik Pandya, Suryakumar Yadav and Tilak Varma -- to join the pre-season camp only five days ahead of the start of this IPL on March 28. India had defended their title at Ahmedabad after an intense campaign.

For Jayawardene, Bumrah's drop in pace in the earlier part of the league was because the pacer was trying to make 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 tough season for Bumrah who featured in four of the five matches that India played against New Zealand in a bilateral series before the T20 World Cup.

Bumrah also emerged as the joint highest wicket-taker with Varun Chakravarthy (14 wickets) -- including a 4/15 in the final against New Zealand -- while featuring in eight of the nine matches that India played in the T20 World Cup.

The former Sri Lanka skipper said despite Bumrah’s struggles, opposition teams have played cautiously against him.

“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 work around Bumrah’s workload.

“(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 reckoned Bumrah is back to his best and now there are no major 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 said Bumrah has also been working on his no-ball troubles this 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.