leeds
India’s plans to play Jasprit Bumrah in just three Tests remain unaltered despite a classic Bumrah-or-bust Test in Leeds.
In fact, Bumrah’s load management went to the other extreme on the final afternoon at Headingley, when he wasn’t even called upon for the second new ball, when England needed 22 to win with five wickets in hand. However, head coach Gautam Gambhir trusts the rest of the attack to be able to pick up 20 wickets, but also asked for some patience with an inexperienced unit in a team in transition.
“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.
