India men’s assistant coach, Ryan ten Doeschate, took a light-hearted dig at England for leaving the ‘best bowling wicket’ for the fifth Test in the Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy, only after Jasprit Bumrah had played his quota of three games. He said the hosts have got it ‘spot on’ against India’s tactics.
Bumrah declared that he’d play only three Tests in the series before it even began. He featured in the first, third, and fourth games and was rested in the second, the only Test India have won so far. Ten Doeschate described the situation as solving a puzzle, where they need to put India’s need to have their best bowler to win matches against the risk of inflicting a long-term injury, like after the tour of Australia.
“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, and our thinking yeah 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,” the assistant coach said in the press conference after Day 1’s play at the Oval.
“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,” he added.
India were again put to bat in the Test and scored 204/6 at Stumps on the greenish track. England are themselves without their best pacers for the Test, with Ben Stokes injured and Jofra Archer rested for similar reasons to Bumrah. Chris Woakes also suffered a shoulder injury on Thursday to boot.
Ten Doeschate also rebuffed the suggestion that Bumrah was ‘picking and choosing’ which matches to play, saying that India players are always disappointed when they can’t play but try to motivate each other.
“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,” he said.
“I don’t think picking and choosing is a fair comment to Bumrah, 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,” the coach added.
