Leeds: The Indian team management will not push lone warrior Jasprit Bumrah to play more than three Tests against England despite the loss in the series opener, head coach Gautam Gambhir has asserted.
Bumrah was the sole Indian bowler who consistently posed a challenge to the England batters at Headingley.
As part of workload management for the injury-prone star pacer, the management had decided to play him in three out of five Tests. That plan doesn’t change with four games remaining.
“No, we won’t change the plans. For us to manage his workload is more important because there’s a lot of cricket going forward and we know what he brings on the table as well. Before he came on the show, it was already decided that he’s going to play three Test matches,” said Gambhir on Tuesday.
The next Test starts in Birmingham from July 2 but Gambhir said the team has not taken a call on which two games the pace spearhead will be part of in the five-match series.
“But let’s see how his body turns out. We haven’t decided which two other Test matches he’s going to play. (Even without Bumrah) we absolutely have the bowling attack (to compete). We believe in them. We trust in them.
“When we pick the squad, we pick the squad on trust, not on hope. As I just mentioned, those are inexperienced bowlers but they will keep getting better. We saw in this Test match as well that for the first four days, even on day five, we were in a position where we could have won the Test match. We believe and we trust that these boys will deliver for us,” Gambhir added.
