Jasprit Bumrah may have to play a first-class match before India pick their Test squad for New Zealand. Selectors want proof that his knee can handle red-ball cricket, through either a Ranji Trophy game for Gujarat or an India A fixture.
A Ranji appearance would be his first since January 2017. That game was the 2016-17 semi-final against Jharkhand in Nagpur, where he took 6/29 in the second innings and Gujarat won by 123 runs.
He also missed the Sri Lanka Test series. Nothing is official yet. The plan comes from BCCI and selection sources quoted in reports this month.
Bumrah hurt his left knee while fielding in India’s second ODI against England in Cardiff in July. His last red-ball match was the second Test against South Africa in Guwahati in November 2025. That is ten months without a first-class game.
He returned in the first T20I against Afghanistan in Delhi on September 13, after match simulation at the BCCI Centre of Excellence. For the selectors, that clearance only answers half the question.
“The BCCI medical team at the Centre of Excellence (CoE) had shared a report with selectors last week, where it was mentioned that these four players were clinically fit but had to be assessed in practice matches.”
BCCI source, Times of India report, September 2026
The board wants Bumrah to “play one first-class game before the team is announced.”
BCCI source, September 2026
🔴AFTER 9 YEARS, BUMRAH COULD BE BACK IN DOMESTIC RED-BALL CRICKET🤯
– BCCI wants Jasprit Bumrah to get some red-ball game time before India’s New Zealand Test series.
– Bumrah last played domestic red-ball cricket in India during the 2016/17 Ranji Trophy season – back in… pic.twitter.com/4r2dkYDnNW
— Sam (@cricsam02) September 30, 2026
A clean T20I return tells selectors the knee works. It does not tell them what a Test match will do to it, and that gap is bigger than it looks from the stands.
Insider Read
Four overs in a T20 is a sprint. You bowl a short spell, rest, come back for one more, and the night is over. A Test asks for long spells across a full day, then asks again the next morning when the knee is stiff from every landing the day before.
That second morning is what nets and simulations cannot show. In a simulation, you stop when the plan says stop. In a match, the captain needs one more spell, the tail is hanging on, and you keep running in. One first-class game shows selectors whether the knee holds on day three, not just in the first over.
Where Bumrah Can Fit a Red-Ball Game Before the Tests
The window is tight. Gujarat are in Elite Group C of the Ranji Trophy, and India’s tour begins before the first leg ends.
| Event | Dates |
|---|---|
| Ranji Trophy first leg | October 11 to November 5 |
| India’s New Zealand tour begins | October 22 |
| India A four-day matches, Christchurch (three games) | From October 24 |
| First Test, Basin Reserve, Wellington | November 19 to 23 |
| Second Test, Hagley Oval, Christchurch | November 27 to December 1 |
The India A route puts him in the same conditions as the New Zealand Tests, in the city that hosts the second Test. The push also fits a wider move: the BCCI is set to direct key Test players, including Shubman Gill and Akash Deep, to play domestic cricket before the tour.
If the plan stalls, reports name Prince Yadav as the backup fast bowler, a reminder of how thin India’s cover for Bumrah is.
A Ranji comeback has been planned before. In December 2019, Bumrah was lined up to prove his fitness for Gujarat against Kerala in Surat after a stress fracture. He sat out after BCCI president Sourav Ganguly and secretary Jay Shah advised him to focus on white-ball cricket.
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