The first real test of your self-restraint begins when you realise the alternatives you have are miles behind the thing you vowed to avoid. Right that moment, you have two options. The first, the more ideal one, is not to give in to your hankerings, no matter how bad the situation is. The second is to start negotiating with yourself to loosen the restrictions.
India stand at the same crossroads right now. They are not only one down, just a game into the series, but also have several things to fix, things which would take some time to fix. And more importantly, they need to stick with their three-game cap on Jasprit Bumrah regardless of the results.
But Gautam Gambhir, who is coaching India in transition, seems resolute to follow the first path and ride this out. He believes the younger lot from the Indian bowling lineup has it in them to carry the team even without Bumrah.
“I think for us to manage Bumrah’s workload is more important because there’s a lot of cricket going forward and we know what he brings to the table as well,” Gambhir said. “So before he came on this tour, it was already decided that he’s going to play three Test matches, but let’s see how his body turns up. But we haven’t decided which two other Test matches he’s going to play.”
The Bumrah-less Indian bowling attack wasn’t too impressive during the first Test game. Prasidh Krishna and Shardul Thakur both went more than run-a-ball in the first innings. The pair wasn’t any better in the second innings, too, with Krishna going for runs at an economy of 6.13 while Shardul leaked at 5.11. Ravindra Jadeja failed to use the rough to India’s advantage, and squeezed only a single scalp on a surface that gifted Shoaib Bashir two just the previous day.
“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.
“We will have to give them time. Earlier, we used to have four fast bowlers in the squad with an experience of more than 40 Tests. It doesn’t make such a big impact in one-day or T20 matches, but when you go to Australia, England, or South Africa for Tests, experience matters.”
“These are early days. If we start judging our bowlers after every Test, how will we develop a bowling attack? Outside Bumrah and [Mohammad] Siraj, we don’t have that much experience, but they [the others] have quality, which is why they are in this dressing room. But we have got to keep backing them because it’s not about one tour. It’s about building a fast-bowler battery that can serve India for long time in Test cricket.”
Gambhir believes more game time will give this wet-behind-the-ears bowling attack the experience they need to navigate tricky surfaces in countries like England.
“We absolutely have the bowling attack,” the Indian coach said. “We believe in them. We trust in them. When we pick the squad, we pick the squad on trust, not on hope. Those are inexperienced bowlers, but they will keep getting better, and we saw in this Test match as well that, for the first four days, we were in a position, and even on day five, we were in a position, where we would have won the Test match. So we believe and we trust that we can. These boys will deliver for us.”
