There has been discussions around Jasprit Bumrah’s availability before each of the five matches of the Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy between India and England but the most significant of those was before the ongoing final Test at The Oval in London. On what has been the most bowler-friendly series so far, with evident seam and swing movement on offer, India had to stick to their pre-tour decision of playing Bumrah in only three of the five Tests, which meant they were without their most potent weapon for the decisive game. That India were missing Bumrah was more pronounced during the course of Day 2, where India’s three seamers were taken to the cleaners early on by Ben Duckett and Zak Crawley, with England hurtling towards India’s first inning total at fifth gear.
India assistant coach Ryan ten Doeschate offered the team management’s explanation after the end of Day 1’s play. On Friday, the BCCI also confirmed that Bumrah was released from the squad.
“It’s quite a complex issue around Bumrah. We obviously want to wheel him in, but we also want to respect where his body’s at, and on the basis of that, we just felt that it wasn’t worth including him in the squad,” ten Doeschate. said on Thursday. “He has bowled a large number of overs, I know it doesn’t always seem like that because he’s only played three Tests and he only bowled in one innings in Manchester. But if you look at the loads, he’s bowled a lot of overs, and like he did say coming into the tour, he was going to be available for three games, and we just felt it was right to honour that call.”
The perceived criticism around Bumrah playing three out of the five matches in an important away series has been that he is picking and choosing the matches he wanted to play. Although, coming on the back of a away series in Australia where he toiled right through the summer Down Under before suffering a serious back issue in the final Test, it did seem spurious. Ten Doeschate also confirmed that which three Tests he played was upto the team management as well.
“I don’t think picking and choosing is a fair comment to Bumrah,” the former Dutch allrounder said. “He did say he was going to play three games, he left it up to us which three he played. We’ve tried to manage the situation, it’s not ideal, I guess giving those guys attention, the guys who aren’t playing particularly when you’re carrying 18 is important.
“… Make them know that you’re making all the decisions in good faith, in the best interest of the team, and just on that, all the guys who haven’t played, they’ve been fantastic, they’ve trained the house down, they’re disappointed when they get left out. They don’t let it show when they’re around the group and that’s very important to creating a good culture for the guys who are playing to perform.”
Doeschate added that it made sense to play Bumrah in Manchester than keeping him for the final Test.
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“Every time I’ve answered this question I’ve spoken about like putting the pieces of the puzzles together and guys were baffled when we didn’t play him in the third Test,” he said.
“Our thinking was that the Oval, yes it’s got bounce but it’s normally a fairly good wicket for batting on, and we thought we’d roll the dice and if we’d won the toss we would have bowled. In hindsight you would have loved to have him here, but you would also have said if we come here 3-1 down that we didn’t use him there, so it’s trying to not guess but trying to look into the future and then see how we can manage him, and maybe England have got it spot on leaving the best bowling wicket for the last Test after he’s played three,” Doeschate said.
The Indian Express had reported earlier on Thursday that India were likely to leave out Bumrah, having decided to go with Karun Nair in place of all-rounder Shardul Thakur. Bumrah and Anshul Kamboj made way for Akash Deep and Prasidh Krishna, with Mohammed Siraj being the pace spearhead. Meanwhile, Dhruv Jurel replaced injured wicket-keeper Rishabh Pant.
On the match eve, there was a point of view that Bumrah might play his fourth Test of the series in Oval despite the team management’s workload considerations and the pre-decided plan to play him just three Tests. That was not to be. With the pitch having a layer of grass, left-arm wrist spinner Kuldeep once again failed to make the cut. And that is also the reason India bolstered their batting line-up.
