'Can't go to the World Cup half-cooked' - Gambhir opens up on Bumrah, Hardik's fitness

India head coach Gautam Gambhir has stressed that both Hardik Pandya and Jasprit Bumrah need to be fit and firing for the team to stand a chance of winning the ODI World Cup next year in southern Africa.

Hardik Pandya has not played a competitive game since Mumbai Indians' final IPL 2026 fixture against Rajasthan Royals (RR) at the Wankhede Stadium on May 24. He has been named in India A's squad for the upcoming 50-over series against Australia A, which begins on October 6.

Meanwhile, Bumrah is with India's T20I squad in Japan for the ongoing men's cricket competition at the Asian Games, where India are defending their gold medal. The right-arm pacer played all three matches in the recently concluded T20I series against Afghanistan in New Delhi, bowling his full quota of overs in every game except the final one.

The series marked Bumrah's return to international cricket after he injured his knee during the second ODI of the three-match series against England on July 16. He was ruled out of the decider at Lord's, and his absence proved costly as India lost the series, going down by 27 runs while chasing 388.

"Whether it's Hardik or Jasprit Bumrah, they are going to be extremely important for us in southern Africa," Gambhir said in an interview with JioHotstar. "Very few teams have players like Hardik who can bowl 10 overs and score runs from No. 6 or No. 7, that too with such impact. So the focus for us, especially with Hardik, is that he needs game time as well. He hasn't played much cricket since the IPL. If we talk about 50-over cricket and want to play him, he might be short on match practice.

"If he plays a bit of T20 cricket and then transitions into one-day cricket, it will help because game time heading into the World Cup is going to be extremely important. You can't go to the World Cup half-cooked. You must have enough game time, and your rhythm needs to be good enough because there are no ifs and buts when it comes to a World Cup. There is no room for mistakes.

"The same applies to Jassi as well. With him, the thought process is about how much one-day cricket we can make him play. Test cricket is equally important. So, it is going to be critical to figure out the ideal balance between workload and game time."

Both players are not part of India's squad for the three-match ODI series against West Indies at home, beginning on September 27.