Birmingham: A call on premier pacer Jasprit Bumrah playing the second Test will be taken in the next 24 hours but India assistant coach Ryan ten Doeschate is pretty sure that his team will take the field with two spinners at Edgbaston.
There is a growing clamour to include wrist spinner Kuldeep Yadav in the playing eleven but to maintain the batting depth, Washington Sundar is also in the mix to start alongside Ravindra Jadeja.
All three spinners bowled in the nets on Monday.
Bumrah, who would be playing three out of five Tests in the series as part of workload management, held a two coloured ball (red and white) at the start of the training session before picking up the Dukes ball to bowl only towards the end of the session.
He bowled roughly three overs, unlike teammates Mohammed Siraj, Akash Deep and Prasidh Krishna, who bowled a lot upfront.
With 0-1 down, India find themselves in a conundrum over picking Bumrah’s three Tests.
“He’s available for the game obviously. We know from the start he’s only going to play three out of the five. He’s had eight days to recover from the last test,” said Doeschate
“But given conditions and workload and how we think we can best manage for the next four games, we haven’t made a call on that. We’re going to see what the other guys are with their workload as well.
“If we feel like there’s value in playing him in this Test, we’ll make that call at the very last minute. But I’m talking about weather, how the pitch is going to play. Are we better off holding him back for Lord’s and maybe Manchester or the Oval? So it’s all those factors.”
Is it tempting to include Bumrah given India are trailing in the series?
“It is, but we also feel we can go 1-1 or keep the score at 1-0 without Jasprit. Again, that’s putting the eggs in the back end of the series. We’re going to need him at some stage as well. You’ve got to decide when you’re going to play your strongest suit.
“We came pretty close without Jasprit in the second half (at Leeds). He didn’t get any wickets. But you can’t win the Test series with just one bowler in any case. Sorry, I can’t give you a more firm answer. But we’ll work out in the next 24 hours how.”
Pretty sure two spinners will play here
The Leeds wicket was full of runs and considering the hot weather, expectations are that the pitch will again be good for batting, bringing the spinners into play.
India missed the service of a second spinner in the series-opener and Doeschate said the team is likely to change its strategy for the game beginning on Wednesday.
And will India compromise on their batting depth by playing Kuldeep ahead of Washington? Doeschate did not reveal much on that but came -close to confirming that two spinners will be part of the playing eleven.
“There is a very strong chance of playing two spinners. It’s just which two we play. And that goes back to the previous question about juggling the batting depth. All three spinners are bowling very nicely.
“Washi’s batting very nicely. So it’s just which combination do we go with? All-rounder spinner or the out-and-out spinner? And you have to play the bowling all-rounder again. So there’s so many different variables.
“The wicket’s got 11 mm grass on at the moment. 11 or 12 mm. But it’s quite grassy and patchy. It’s quite dry underneath. But there’s also rain forecast for Wednesday. So again, trying to weigh up the two options of how we want to go attacking-wise. But I’m pretty sure two spinners will play in this Test.”
Shardul or Nitish?
India chose bowling all-rounder Shardul Thakur ahead of batting all-rounder for the fourth pacer’s slot at Leeds. He did not bowl enough and had an ordinary time with the bat.
Doeschate indicated that Nitish Reddy might play.
“He’s very close to getting a game. Obviously, he was fantastic in Australia. Coming into the team and playing the way he did.
“We just felt on balance for the last game, we wanted to go with the bowling all-rounder. Which we thought Shardul was slightly ahead on the bowling front. We’re looking at ways of rejigging the puzzle, so we can get a batting all-rounder in.
“Nitish is our premium batting all-rounder at the moment. So I would say it’s a very good chance to play this test,” the former Netherlands international said.
Jaiswal removed from slip cordon
After dropping four catches at Leeds, majority of them in the slips, Jaiswal will not be seen at gully here. The slip cordon part of training included Karun Nair, KL Rahul, captain Shubman Gill while Reddy and Sai Sudharsan were switching between fourth slip and gully.
“We always want depth in the catching department. In England, you’re always going to have four catchers at some stage in the game. Yashasvi has been a very good catcher for us. We want to manage his confidence,” said Doeschate.
“There’s also an argument for the short leg being a very important position, particularly if we are going to play two spinners. And we want to pick more guys in that position. So the more versatile we are as a fielding unit, the more guys can do more jobs.
“And maybe just give Yashasvi a break from catching in the gully for a little while. His hands are quite sore. We want to get his confidence back up,” said the assistant coach.
