India’s Jasprit Bumrah (AP Photo/Anupam Nath) NEW DELHI: India’s opening T20 World Cup 2026 match against the USA at the Wankhede Stadium on Saturday began with a major talking point: the absence of Jasprit Bumrah from the playing XI. The pace spearhead was ruled out of the match due to illness, with Mohammed Siraj coming on as his replacement.At the toss, India captain Suryakumar Yadav confirmed the development and outlined the team’s approach.
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He said: “We were looking for the bat first. It looks good here. I have played a lot of cricket here. There is also wind around so I don’t think there will be much dew later. Of course there will be a little pressure. We can’t run away from that but then in the new tournament we want to play the same way we have played in the last two years. “It’s live before the game starts and I’m sure it will be wilder when we start batting. We’re missing Washington Sundar, we’re missing Sanju Samson. Unfortunately, Jasprit Bumrah is not well, so Mohammed Siraj is playing.”BCCI gave an update on Bumrah’s condition and wrote, “Jasprit Bumrah has been unavailable for selection for the opening T20 World Cup match against USA due to illness. BCCI’s medical team is closely monitoring his condition.”The toss followed the USA pattern and they chose to bowl first on what was described as a batting surface. USA captain Monank Patel said: “We will bowl first. It looks good. High scoring surface so we will try to catch it. World Cup is one of the biggest stages for us. We have a lot of expectations from USA so we will try to do well. We played a few warm-up matches at DY patil and we ran well there. We have all 6 runs and 3 runs.”India named a strong XI of Abhishek Sharma, Ishan Kishan, Tilak Varma, Hardik Pandya, Rinku Singh, Shivam Dube, Axar Patel, Arshdeep Singh, Mohammed Siraj and Varun Chakravarthy, while USA fielded a balanced line-up led by Monank Patel.Bumrah’s absence is a blow for India, but the inclusion of Siraj ensures that the pace attack remains formidable as the hosts look to start their title defense with a win.
