The once-great Pakistani fast bowler Sarfraz Nawaz is lavish in his praise for Jasprit Bumrah, expressing that, currently amongst all cricketers, the best bowler going around is the 31-year-old from Ahmedabad. Bumrah had to withdraw from the ongoing Champions Trophy 2025 in February the same year due to lower back pain, and he retains his No. 1 position on the ICC Test bowler’s rankings. It was Bumrah who was critical in India’s clinching the T20 World Cup title in 2024. In recognition of his outstanding performance in Tests and T20Is last year, Bumrah collected the ICC Cricketer of the Year and the ICC Test Cricketer of the Year awards for 2024.
Instilled with a serious fire in him from Bumrah’s run of form, Nawaz, who played 55 Tests and 45 ODIs for Pakistan during his 15-year-long international career, elaborated thus, “I must tell you; he (Bumrah) is the best bowler in the world today. But he’s probably unfit. If he were fit, well, we could have expected to see a little bit more of him, about what he did in Australia. Outstanding. It’s a pity, he is not available for this Champions Trophy.”
The 76-year-old former right-arm fast bowler also shed some light on the India-Pakistan Champions Trophy 2025 match, which was played in Dubai on Sunday, February 23, during an interview with Cricbuzz on Thursday.
As per Nawaz, “It was one-sided because the team was unjustly selected. They did not take spinners, which ended in two injuries (Saim Ayub and Fakhar Zaman). Overall, the team was unbalanced, anyway. Some of them are selected because of their political backup. When the team was announced, I wrote to the chairman of the PCB suggesting spinners Sajid and Noman, who had wreaked havoc on England earlier. They did well against West Indies, yet they were still not picked.”
“The downfall of Pakistan cricket has happened. For this, I hold responsible the PCB officials who have been running the board. They are not cricketers, they are bureaucrats. That’s why I think they don’t know how to go about things like that. They have appointed people who previously ruined Pakistan cricket. And there have been frequent changes within PCB. There were three chairmen and four captains in one and a half years. What else could anyone expect?” said he.
