Jayawardene says Bumrah is in 'good nick' after IPL comeback

Jasprit Bumrah was back at full tilt, executed his plans well, and faced no discomfort at the end of it all. That was head coach Mahela Jayawardene's assessment after Mumbai Indians' (MI) 12-run defeat to Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) in their IPL 2025 match on Monday. Bowling in a match for the first time since walking out of the New Year's Test in Australia, Bumrah gave a good account of himself and returned figures of 0 for 29 in four overs in RCB's total of 221 for 5.

"I just spoke to him after the game and he looks in good nick," Jayawardene said. "He's disappointed [at losing] as well. He wanted a win when he came back. But other than that, he looks fine. I think the pace was up, the execution was good."

Bumrah linked up with MI on Saturday after BCCI's Centre of Excellence (formerly National Cricket Academy) gave cleared him. He trained with the team on Sunday, bowling to batters for the first time in over three months, and then played his first competitive match. Trent Boult and Deepak Chahar shared the new ball after MI opted to bowl and Bumrah was only brought on in the fourth over when RCB had raced to 33 for 1.

"I think we got two swing bowlers, we need to give them that opportunity first up," Jayawardene said about Bumrah not starting with the new ball. "Boom's coming back from a three-month layoff as well. So we just wanted to ease him into the competition, but he bowled well and he controlled things really well. The more he starts playing, [getting] game time, he'll get into it.

"The last time he was playing a Test match, all of a sudden he's playing a T20. So we need to understand that. The skills were brilliant but there are areas for us to improve."

Bumrah bowled one over in the powerplay, one in the middle overs and two at the death. He conceded just two boundaries - both sixes - in his spell and was the most economical bowler at the Wankhede Stadium across the two teams. MI conceded 52 in the last four overs; in the two overs Bumrah bowled then, he gave away just 14.

"[Having Bumrah back] just gives us more options," Jayawardene said. "Yesterday was his first day where he bowled to batsmen. From that confidence, that's something that we lacked in the last few games. We have that as well, but we just need to put all these pieces together and execute a good game to give us confidence so that we can move on."

As soon as Bumrah entered the field on Monday, he headed to the pitch. Standing at the pavilion end, he mimed bowling a few deliveries before marking his run-up at both ends alongside the other MI bowlers. After RCB's innings ended, he was subbed out with Rohit Sharma playing as the Impact Player in the chase.

Was Bumrah itching to cut loose after linking up with the squad?

"Obviously, NCA has a programme that they have to go through, do all the fitness tests and make sure that he is in good shape," Jayawardene said. "That applies to all Indian contracted players. Once he went through that, he had five-six good sessions as well, everything was cleared. The only thing he was lacking was game time. He hadn't played actively.

"That was something that he came and worked with us yesterday at the nets execution-wise. The experience, the skill that you saw today was pretty good. He bowled to some good players and probably had two or three bad balls in that spell. I'm pretty happy with that."