India's pace spearhead Jasprit Bumrah, who is set to make a comeback on the field with the forthcoming series against Ireland, will have the honour to lead the country during the three-match T20I contest and it will witness him become the 11th player in history of the Indian men's team to lead the side in the shortest format of the sport.
The special honour is most likely to come Bumrah's way in the first T20I, slated to be played in Dublin on Friday, August 18. Bumrah is making a comeback after an injury lay-off and has not played for India since September 25, 2022. His last game in Indian colours was also a T20I against Australia in Hyderabad. The pacer complained of back problems post the fixture and it aggravated to such a major extent that the 29-year-old had to miss the T20 World Cup 2022 down under.
The Ahmedabad-born was tipped to make a comeback with the Indian Premier League 2023 but it couldn't happen either and Mumbai Indians copped the brunt of it as their bowling attack wore a pretty thin look during the entirety of the tournament. Bumrah underwent back surgery in New Zealand in March to get rid of his persistent back issues and was undergoing rehabilitation since then.
He was involved in extensive training programmes at the National Cricket Academy (NCA) recently to regain match fitness and has been deemed fully fit and seems raring to go for the Ireland series. Team India departed for the country earlier and the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) shared pictures of some of the players who are a part of the squad on 'X' formerly Twitter on Tuesday, August 15.
Bumrah will become the 11th player to lead the Indian men's team in T20I cricket, a milestone that cricketers like Virender Sehwag, MS Dhoni, Suresh Raina, Ajinkya Rahane, Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, Shikhar Dhawan, Rishabh Pant, Hardik Pandya and KL Rahul have already achieved.
