Former India head coach Ravi Shastri suggests India should reconsider resting Jasprit Bumrah for upcoming Tests against England in the Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy series, following India’s five-wicket defeat at Headingley where Bumrah took five wickets. The team’s current plan, as stated by head coach Gautam Gambhir, is to have Bumrah play only three of the five Tests for workload management.Bumrah recorded match figures of 5-140 from 43.4 overs in the Headingley Test, with all his wickets coming in the first innings.“If he was looking at a rest, you may have to think twice. If you don’t have him and then go 2-0 down it could be an uphill task,” Shastri said on Sky Sports.
The other Indian seamers – Shardul Thakur, Mohammed Siraj, and Prasidh Krishna – struggled with combined figures of 9-482 in 92 overs, which might influence the decision to play Bumrah in the second Test at Edgbaston starting July 2.“This will be a tough pill for India to swallow. You don’t get in positions like this very often and blow it from there. They had a chance to take England out of the contest and dictate terms,” Shastri commented.“They have to learn and they need more bottle from the tail, for them to be stubborn and put a price tag on their wicket. There is a big role for the coaching staff to take the positives. As a captain, Gill has done more than can be asked of him. He got a hundred in his first Test in charge and the dropped catches (and collapses) are not in his control,” he added.Quiz: Who’s that IPL player?Former England captain Nasser Hussain provided his assessment of Gill’s captaincy and India’s performance.“I saw someone finding his way. He didn’t quite have that on-field aura of Rohit and (Virat Kohli). I thought he followed the ball a lot and was reactive rather than proactive. When Rohit and Kohli captained, you looked down and you immediately knew who was in charge but when I looked down in this game I saw two or three captains, captaincy by committee,” Hussain observed.“But India lost from two things Gill couldn’t control – drops and collapses. The collapses concern me. In India they have had spin-bowling all-rounders that are magnificent – Ravi Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Axar Patel – but in England they are still looking for a seam-bowling all-rounder who can bat. If they keep going 6-31 and 7-41 this could be a quick series,” he concluded.
