India鈥檚 England tour has been off to a mixed start. Their batters scored five centuries, Jasprit Bumrah took a five-wicket haul. And yet they ended up losing the series opener in Leeds. While there were brilliant individual performances during the contest, the final result wasn鈥檛 in their favour. There were plenty of mistakes. Shubman Gill shone with the bat on captaincy debut, but his on-field tactics came under scrutiny. There were fielding mishaps with as many as eight catches being spilled. Bumrah continued to be the leader of the pace attack but found little to no support from others.
Bumrah bowled nearly 45 overs across the two innings 鈥 the second most by any Indian bowler during the match. It again laid bare the team鈥檚 overreliance on him.
Given the 31-year-old is expected to play in three of the five Tests during the tour, speculations are rife if he could be rested for the second match in Edgbaston to manage his workload.
However, Ravichandran Ashwin isn鈥檛 in favour of giving his former teammate a break when India are trailing 0-1 in the series. In fact, the legendary spinner isn鈥檛 in favour of making too many changes.
鈥淔irst of all, after playing such a good Test, I鈥檓 not going to make three changes in the team. Considering we are 1-0 down, I would ask Jasprit Bumrah to play the second Test, try and get even in the series and then he can take a break. There鈥檚 a considerable break between the 3rd and 4th Test, he can take rest then. I will just bring Kuldeep (Yadav) in and make no other changes,鈥 Ashwin said on his YouTube channel.
Nitish To Replace Shardul?
With Shardul Thakur having a forgettable outing with the bat and managing two wickets towards the end of the match on the final day, a few former India cricketers have suggested dropping the allrounder in favour of Nitish Reddy who had an impressive outing during the Border-Gavaskar Trophy in Australia.
Ashwin though begs to differ.
鈥淣itish had a good run in Australia and an okayish IPL. Also, he only played the role of Shardul Thakur and did not bat in the top 6. He batted down the order. Would you play him directly in England as a top 6 batter? I鈥檓 not for it. If you make too many changes, the players would get the vibe that a loss would change things immediately. The batting was strong in the first Test, so I won鈥檛 make any change. Instead, I will make just one change in the bowling,鈥