'Feeling a little bit...': Jasprit Bumrah provides major fitness update amid workload management concerns

Ahead of the beginning of the Test series between India and England, the Men in Blue's head coach Gautam Gambhir had announced that star pacer Jasprit Bumrah will only be featuring in three out of the five matches due to concerns with his fitness. This came after the 31-year-old sustained a back injury during the fifth Border-Gavaskar series Test against Australia in Sydney.

Bumrah raised speculations of a potential injury after he went off field for some time during Day 3 of the Headingley Test. However, following the conclusion of the day's play, the pacer himself provided a big fitness update.

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"Feeling good. It is a little bit colder here than India. I am feeling fresh and good, so hopefully good things will follow," Bumrah told BBC after the end of the third day.

Bumrah recorded brilliant figures against England at Headingley

Despite all the concerns with his workload management, Bumrah ended up delivering and took a stunning five-wicket haul to massively help India in bundling out the hosts for 465 runs in their first innings at Headingley. The pacer finished with figures of 5/83, once again proving why he is the No.1 ranked Test bowler according to the ICC Rankings.

Though Bumrah was assisted well by both Prasidh Krishna and Mohammed Siraj, who picked up three and two wickets respectively during England's innings, the 31-year-old was undoubtedly the star of the show. Bumrah now has a total of 14 five-wicket hauls under his name in red-ball cricket and is likely to increase this tally as the series progresses.

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However, the England innings once again showed that India is still heavily dependant on Bumrah and have a habit of putting him back into the attack when they are in the need for wickets. With Bumrah not playing in two Tests out of the upcoming four, it remains to be seen as to which Indian bowler will become the side's frontline pacer in the 31-year-old's absence.

Except for Krishna and Siraj, the Shubman Gill-led side have pacers like Arshdeep Singh, Harshit Rana and Akash Deep on the bench. It will be interesting to see as to which one of them gets the chance to feature in India's playing XI in the next four Tests of the England tour.