The overs behind India's careful handling of Jasprit Bumrah in Tests

On Boxing Day 2024, Jasprit Bumrah bowled 53.2 overs against Australia and took nine wickets. In the next Test, early in January, he sent down just ten. Swings like that sit behind a complaint now heard among India fans: that the BCCI guards him so carefully that Test bowling has become a part-time job for him.

Nobody serious disputes what he is worth when he does bowl. Our ratings rank him the third-best bowler in men's Tests out of 75, worth almost 38 runs a match more than an average bowler. The complaint is about how much India get out of him, so it has to be settled on the overs he bowls.

Does Bumrah bowl enough overs in Tests?

He bowls a full share whenever he plays. Across his 13 Tests over the last two years he has sent down almost 400 overs, and in England in the summer of 2025 he twice bowled 43 overs or more in a single match. That is the workload of a strike bowler carrying an attack, and a long way from anything part-time.

Those overs have brought wickets at a rare rate. He has taken 61 in that time at an average of 18.51, against 29.22 for all bowlers in men's Tests over the same two years.

Is managing Bumrah's workload the right call?

Yes, and the overs explain why. His load arrives in heavy bursts, with the 53.2 overs on Boxing Day sitting beside the ten in the following Test, and no fast bowler can go on producing the first figure week after week. Paradoxically, the harder India lean on him within a match, the stronger the case for easing off between matches, because his value lies in turning up fresh enough to bowl those long spells again.

His career shows what is at stake. He has 234 Test wickets in 52 matches at an average of 19.79, with 16 five-wicket hauls, which means every Test he is fit for is worth protecting.

The BCCI's caution is justified. If Bumrah's Test bowling is a part-time job, it is part-time work at a world-class rate, and guarding the hours that produce it is the rational choice.