Kamal Ghorui
NEW DELHI: India’s T20 World Cup 2026 opener against the USA on Saturday at the Wankhede Stadium began with a major talking point: Jasprit Bumrah’s absence from the playing XI. The pace spearhead was ruled out of the match due to illness, with Mohammed Siraj stepping in as his replacement.At the toss, India captain Suryakumar Yadav confirmed the development and outlined the team’s approach.
He said, “We were looking to bat first. It looks good here. I played a lot of cricket here. There’s a wind around as well, so I don’t think there’ll be a lot of dew later on. Of course there’ll be a little bit of pressure. We can’t run away from that fact, but then new tournament, we want to play the same way how we’ve been playing in the last one or two years and continue the same thing. “It’s live before the game starts and I’m sure when we start batting, it will be more wilder. We have Washington Sundar missing out, Sanju Samson missing out. Unfortunately Jasprit Bumrah is not well so Mohammed Siraj is playing.”Giving an update on Bumrah’s status, BCCI wrote, “Jasprit Bumrah was unavailable for selection for India’s opening T20 World Cup fixture against the USA due to illness. The BCCI medical team is closely monitoring his condition.”The toss went the USA’s way, and they opted to bowl first on what was described as a batting-friendly surface. USA captain Monank Patel said, “We are going to bowl first. Looks a good surface. High-scoring ground, so we will look to hunt it down. World Cup is one of the biggest stages for us. Lot of expectations from the US so we will look to do well. We played a couple of warmup games at the DY patil and we had a good run there. We have 6 batters, 2 all rounders and 3 bowlers.”India named a strong XI featuring Abhishek Sharma, Ishan Kishan, Tilak Varma, Hardik Pandya, Rinku Singh, Shivam Dube, Axar Patel, Arshdeep Singh, Mohammed Siraj, and Varun Chakravarthy, while the USA fielded a balanced lineup led by Monank Patel.Bumrah’s absence is a blow for India, but Siraj’s inclusion ensures the pace attack remains formidable as the hosts look to start their title defence with a win.
