Jasprit Bumrah deserves more money than Rishabh Pant & Shreyas Iyer, Aakash Chopra says

Jasprit Bumrah is undoubtedly not just the best bowler but also the best player in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025. Just last night, the Mumbai Indians (MI) were out of the match against the Gujarat Titans (GT). Neither the game nor the weather seemed to be the 5-time champions, but Bumrah had other things in mind.

‘Boom’ magic in Mumbai

Gujarat had 8 wickets in hand, with Sherfane Rutherford and Shubman Gill set well, and they required just 49 runs from 36 balls to win. In came Bumrah. He castled Gill, who was adjudged ‘Player of the Match’ later. With a little help from Trent Boult, who got Rutherford, Mumbai were back in the game.

Bumrah then cleaned up Shahrukh Khan as well. Gujarat were now behind the Duckworth-Lewis-Stern (DLS) score by 2 runs. And now the equation was 31 off 18. The match had turned on its head. Mumbai didn’t win, but the only reason the match reached the final ball was Bumrah, and former Indian cricketer Aakash Chopra thinks that as well.

“Bumrah has made it a habit to produce game-changing spells. Coming in right after the strategic timeout and rain break, he dismissed Shubman Gill and then Shahrukh Khan, swinging the momentum back to the Mumbai Indians. He’s a once-in-a-generation talent — you could talk about him endlessly,” Chopra said on JioHotstar.

Jasprit Bumrah deserves to be the most expensive player in IPL

But Aakash didn’t stop there. He went on to say that it’s unfortunate that Bumrah isn’t paid more than other players. He didn’t name names, but everyone knows who he’s talking about. Guys like Rishabh Pant, Shreyas Iyer, Venkatesh Iyer and Heinrich Klaasen are paid well over Rs 20 crore, while Bumrah gets just Rs 18 crore. It’s not like they don’t deserve the big bucks; it’s just that Bumrah deserves more.

“Frankly, he deserves to be the most expensive player in the league. It’s unfortunate that he isn’t,” Chopra said on JioHotstar.