India ace pacer Jasprit Bumrah opened up about his much-discussed workload management, family and much more in a recent conversation with former Australian cricketer Michael Clarke. Speaking on Clarke’s podcast named Beyond 23, Bumrah said his family is more important than his career.
“For me, family is more important than my career because you know that is constant. There are two things that I take seriously. One is my family, and one is my game, but family comes first,” said Bumrah.
“I have to give priority, and I do give priority because I will not be a cricketer all the time. For them, I’m not a cricketer. I’m a human being, and you know, being a young father, seeing my son, you know, he started picking up the ball and started playing with the ball, which is not advisable at this moment,” he added.
With Shubman Gill taking over the captaincy reins from Rohit Sharma after his retirement, Team India is looking at a new era starting from the England tour. Bumrah was in reckoning for the Test leadership, but since he is unlikely to feature in all five Tests, looking at his workload management, the selectors, led by Ajit Agarkar, decided to go with Gill instead.
Speaking on his fitness and his body, Bumrah said: “Obviously, it is tough for any individual to keep playing everything for so long. I’ve been doing it for a while, but eventually you have to understand where your body is going, what is the important tournament.
“You have to be a little selective and smart about how you use your body. As a cricketer, I would never want to leave anything and always keep on going. But I don’t set goals or look at numbers. whenever I have (set goals), I’ve never been able to fulfil them,” he added.
“I just try and enjoy because that’s why I started this sport. Take one day at a time and collect memories because, at the end of the sport, that’s all I’ll remember,” added Bumrah.