Jasprit Bumrah eager to play for India cricket team at LA 2028 Olympics

With cricket returning to the Olympics, India’s pace spearhead Jasprit Bumrah has expressed his desire to manage his workload and stay fit to represent the country at the LA 2028 Games.

"Obviously, it is tough for any individual to keep playing everything for so long," Bumrah told Michael Clarke on the Beyond23 Cricket Podcast. "I've been doing it for a while, but eventually you have to understand where your body is going, what is the important tournament.”

Since making his white-ball debut in 2016, Jasprit Bumrah has been India’s go-to fast bowler. However, recurring injuries in recent years have forced the 31-year-old to carefully manage his workload and appearances.

"You have to be a little selective and smart about how you use your body,” Bumrah explained. “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.

“Now I've heard there's Olympics in cricket coming as well. So that is something that I'm looking forward to. Who would've thought cricket will become an Olympic sport?”

Cricket will be played at the LA 2028 Summer Games in the T20 format and will return to the Olympics after over a century. The sport was a part of the Paris 1900 Olympics but was played in an unofficial Test format.

Bumrah, who will be 34 years of age when the LA 2028 Olympics begins, is widely regarded as the best death bowler in world cricket and, in particular, in the T20 format.

In T20 Internationals, Bumrah has featured in 70 matches, taking 89 wickets at a miserly economy of 6.27 and an impressive average of 17.74.

The right-arm pacer was also an integral member of India’s 2024 T20 World Cup-winning team and was adjudged the Player of the Tournament after taking 15 wickets at an average of 8.26 and an economy of 4.17.

Overall, Bumrah has featured in 245 T20 matches in his career, taking 313 wickets at an economy of 6.88 and an average of 20.22.

He also has five titles with Mumbai Indians in the Indian Premier League - the world’s leading T20 franchise competition - and is the team’s leading wicket-taker with 183 scalps.

Cricket at the LA 2028 Olympics will be played in a temporary purpose-built structure at the Fairgrounds in Pomona.

Six teams will compete in both the men’s and women’s tournaments with a total of 90 athlete quotas allocated for each gender, allowing every team to have a 15-member squad.

Cricket is one of five new sports to feature at the upcoming Olympics alongside baseball/softball, flag football, lacrosse (sixes) and squash.

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