Is there really a replacement for Jasprit Bumrah? The numbers say India's bowling is a different attack without him

On Wednesday night in Hyderabad, West Indies made 247 for 3 against India. Six days earlier in Ranchi, they chased 250. In between, India defended 223 in Indore only because they took wickets, not because they kept the runs down.

Jasprit Bumrah has not played a ball of this series. He is not injured. He has been kept out of the home T20Is against West Indies, he has been rested for the T20Is in New Zealand, and India are learning, one big total at a time, what their attack looks like without him.

So is there anyone who can do his job? On the numbers, the honest answer right now is no. Here is why.

The gap, in one table

These are India's four seamers across the first four T20Is against West Indies, from TryBall's live scorecards:

• Arshdeep Singh: 16 overs, 175 runs, 5 wickets, economy 10.94
• Mayank Yadav: 15 overs, 162 runs, 4 wickets, economy 10.80
• Prince Yadav: 8 overs, 73 runs, 1 wicket, economy 9.12
• Nitish Kumar Reddy: 5 overs, 58 runs, 1 wicket, economy 11.60

Together that is 44 overs, 468 runs and 11 wickets: an economy of 10.64 and a wicket every 42.5 runs.

Now Bumrah. Going into the Asian Games last month, he had 121 wickets in 95 T20Is at an average of 18.08 and an economy of 6.51. At the T20 World Cup in March, which India won at home, he took 14 wickets at an economy of 6.21 and finished the final against New Zealand with 4 for 15.

Put simply, India's seamers in this series are conceding four more runs an over than Bumrah does over his whole career, and more than twice as many runs per wicket. Bowl those same 44 overs at Bumrah's career rate and they would have cost about 286 runs, not 468.

That comparison flatters Bumrah a little, and we will come to why. But even with every caveat, the size of the gap is the story.

It is not just this series

The same thing happened in the ODIs. Bumrah and Arshdeep missed the three-match ODI series against West Indies, and India conceded 1,052 runs in three games, including 405 for 7 in Guwahati and 352 for 5 in the third ODI, which West Indies won.

India's seam bowlers in those three ODIs (Prasidh Krishna, Gurnoor Brar, Anshul Kamboj, Auqib Nabi, Mohammed Siraj and Nitish Kumar Reddy) bowled 75.5 overs for 638 runs and took 8 wickets. That is 8.41 an over and almost 80 runs per wicket. Bumrah's career ODI economy is around 4.6.

And there is an older, more painful example. Bumrah missed the 2022 T20 World Cup with a back injury. In the semi-final in Adelaide, England chased 169 without losing a wicket, in 16 overs. All six Indian bowlers who bowled that night finished 0 for something. The next time India played a T20 World Cup with Bumrah fit, in 2024, he took 15 wickets at an economy of 4.17 and India won the title.

What Bumrah actually does that others don't

The wickets matter, but the real difference is what happens at the other end. A team facing Bumrah usually decides to play out his four overs and attack everyone else. That pushes the risk onto the other bowlers, and it is why India's whole attack looks sharper when he plays.

Without him, there is no over in which the batting side has to defend. Look at the 4th T20I: Mayank and Arshdeep both went for 52 in their four overs. The most economical Indian bowler was Prince Yadav at 9 an over. Hope made his second unbeaten 102 of the series, and West Indies did not need to take a single risk against anyone.

Three things Bumrah gives India that no current alternative does:

• He takes wickets with the new ball and at the death. Most bowlers are one or the other. Arshdeep is excellent with the new ball and has a good death record, but he has gone at almost 11 an over in this series.
• He controls the runs while taking wickets. A strike rate of a wicket every 15 to 17 balls normally comes with a high economy. Bumrah's comes at 6.5.
• He does it in all three formats. His Test average is 19.79 from 234 wickets. When he reached 200 Test wickets in Melbourne in December 2024, he became the first bowler to get there with an average under 20, and no bowler in history with 200 or more Test wickets has a lower average than his.

The candidates, and what is missing

India have not been short of options. They have been short of someone who does all of it.

• Arshdeep Singh: India's most reliable white-ball seamer behind Bumrah, with 36 wickets in T20 World Cups. But his World Cup economy is 7.81, against Bumrah's 5.66, and in this series he has 5 wickets at 10.94 an over. A very good partner for Bumrah, not a replacement.
• Mayank Yadav: the only Indian bowler in this series who regularly beats batters for pace. He took 3 for 36 in Ranchi and bowled Rovman Powell at close to 150 kph. But he has 4 wickets in four games at 10.80 an over, and his career has been stop-start because of injuries. Raw speed is not the same thing as control.
• Prince Yadav: the tightest of the seamers here at 9.12 an over, but with one wicket in eight overs. Too early to judge.
• Harshit Rana and Prasidh Krishna: both have been tried with the new ball in ODIs. Prasidh went at 7.00 across his two ODIs against West Indies. Neither has made a spot his own.
• Mohammed Siraj and Mohammed Shami: the proven seniors. Siraj played only the third ODI (8-0-52-1). Shami has not played an ODI since the 2025 Champions Trophy, though, as we wrote last week, India won that tournament with him leading the attack while Bumrah was injured.
• Bhuvneshwar Kumar: recalled for the New Zealand T20Is. Proof of how thin the options are that India have gone back to a 36-year-old swing bowler.

The case for the other side

It would be wrong to blame everything on one missing player.

First, the pitches. Gautam Gambhir said after Ranchi that flat pitches are putting bowlers' "careers at stake". Hyderabad, Ranchi and Indore are three of the best batting grounds in India, and in October there is dew. Bumrah would not have gone at 6.5 an over on those surfaces either.

Second, Bumrah is not untouchable. In the Asian Games final against Pakistan earlier this month he went wicketless for 33 in his four overs, and he started IPL 2026 with five games without a wicket.

Third, the famous "paradox". Wisden worked out in July 2025 that India had won 20 of 46 Tests with Bumrah (43%) and 19 of 27 without him (70%). That looks damning until you see why: most of the games he missed were at home or against weaker teams, while he is saved for the hardest away tours. It says more about India's scheduling than about Bumrah.

None of that changes the main point. When conditions are hard, India need someone who can still bowl four overs for 25. Right now they have one such bowler, and he is not playing.

So, is there a replacement?

Not yet, and probably not as one person. India's best hope is a group: Arshdeep with the new ball, Mayank for pace in the middle, and a third seamer who can bowl yorkers at the death. That is three bowlers trying to do what one man does.

The bigger worry is time. Bumrah turns 33 in December and has had serious back injuries, which is why every series he plays is now managed. The 2027 ODI World Cup is next year. If India want an attack that does not collapse every time he is rested, they need to start finding out who can handle pressure now, in series like this one, and accept the losses that come with it.

On the evidence of the last two weeks, that search has barely begun.

The fifth and final T20I is in Bengaluru on Saturday, 17 October, at 7 PM IST, with the series level at 2-2. Follow it live on TryBall.