Visitors will be under pressure to reassess bowling combination for Edgbaston Test
Jasprit Bumrah on Day Five of the 1st Test vs England yesterday. Pic/Getty Images
Before the series against England, there was a lot of talk about Indian bowling spearhead Jasprit Bumrah being rested for a couple of Test matches to manage his workload. No one is sure which games those could be. In light of India’s performance in the first Test at Headingley, it is almost impossible to imagine an Indian attack without Bumrah. Thus, it will be a big dilemma for the team management whether to rest the star bowler and, if so, what changes to make for the second Test, to be played in Birmingham from July 2.
Coach Gautam Gambhir and chief selector Ajit Agarkar will have to dig deep and come up with the right combination. For that, they will have to conduct a thorough analysis of the bowlers’ performance at Headingley and implement a couple of changes.
They will have to examine if they had erred in going into the first Test with only one spinner. Unorthodox left-arm spinner Kuldeep Yadav could have provided variety to the attack and along with Ravindra Jadeja put pressure on the England batsmen on the fifth day pitch. There will also have to be a rethink on Shardul Thakur. Did he do enough to be retained for the second Test. Yes, he did provide a double breakthrough just before the tea interval on the fifth and final day. But does captain Shubman Gill have enough confidence in him to give him another opportunity? He was barely given a few overs in the first innings and was brought in to bowl in the second only after Gill had exhausted all the options. Will the late strikes save his place in the second Test, or will the think-tank go in with two spinners?
If the Indian think-tank had taken the trouble to analyse the two wins India have notched up at Leeds — by 279 runs in 1986 under Kapil Dev and by an innings and 46 runs in 2002 under Sourav Ganguly — they would have found that in both these matches India went in with two spinners.
In 1986, it was Ravi Shastri and Maninder Singh who supported Kapil, Roger Binny and Madan Lal. And left-arm spinner Maninder produced marvellous figures of 4-26 to help India record a famous win with the spin duo claiming six wickets in the match. In 2002, it was Anil Kumble who grabbed seven in the match to spearhead the huge win and was well supported by off-spinner Harbhajan Singh. Thus, two spinners can be effective in English conditions too, as the pressure of spin at both ends could be useful in exploiting England batsmen’s vulnerability against spin on the fifth day.
So, sprucing up the bowling attack at Edgbaston is going to be a challenging task for the team management. Fortunately, there is a week-long break before the next game. That should provide enough time to ponder over the contentious issue.
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