India assistant coach Ryan ten Doeschate kept the door open for Jasprit Bumrah’s inclusion in the second test vs England in Birmingham but didn’t give a firm answer on the pacer’s status. Bumrah, who will play 3 Tests out of 5 vs England, is expected to miss the second Test but Doeschate’s comments builds up a fair bit of intrigue.
“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. 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,” Doeschate said on Monday.
“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,” he added.
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,” he said.
However, the former Dutch cricketer said that India are likely to line up with two spinners in the 2nd Test.
“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,” he said.
“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,” he added.
