Gambhir preaches patience after the bowling is exposed in the non-Bumrah bowled overs by the other bowlers.
Gambhir preaches patience as Bumrah’s blunting leaves attack exposed.
Despite a classic Bumrah-or-bust Test in Leeds, India’s plans to play Jasprit Bumrah in just three Test matches have not changed.
On the last session at Headingley, when England needed 22 to win with five wickets remaining and Bumrah wasn’t even called upon for the second new ball, his load management actually went to the opposite extreme. Head coach Gautam Gambhir, however, has urged for patience with an inexperienced unit in a team going through a transition, even though he believes the rest of the attack can take 20 wickets.
“This bowling attack has one bowler with five Tests under his belt [Nitish Kumar Reddy], one has four [Prasidh Krishna], one has played two [Harshit Rana] and one hasn’t yet debuted [Arshdeep Singh],” Gambhir said, with Prasidh coming under particular scrutiny for an economy rate in excess of a-run-a-ball in each innings, even though he used the bouncer to good effect in the second innings after struggling to hit his lengths in the first.
“We will have to give them time,” Gambhir said. “Earlier, we used to have four fast bowlers in the squad with an experience of more than 40 Tests. It doesn’t make such a big impact in one-day or T20 matches, but when you go to Australia, England, or South Africa for Tests, experience matters.
“These are early days. If we start judging our bowlers after every Test, how will we develop a bowling attack? Outside Bumrah and [Mohammad] Siraj, we don’t have that much experience, but they [the others] have quality, which is why they are in this dressing room. But we have got to keep backing them because it’s not about one tour. It’s about building a fast-bowler battery that can serve India for long time in Test cricket.”
Gambhir reinforced his trust in the fast bowlers even as doubts gather as to how India will take 20 wickets in the two Tests that Bumrah won’t play. “I think for us to manage Bumrah’s workload is more important because there’s a lot of cricket going forward and we know what he brings to the table as well,” Gambhir said. “So before he came on this tour, it was already decided that he’s going to play three Test matches, but let’s see how his body turns up. But we haven’t decided which two other Test matches he’s going to play.”