By News18
Birmingham, Jul 7 (PTI) Jasprit Bumrah didn鈥檛 play the second Test and yet England received a sound thrashing and now Ben Stokes and his teammates will have to prepare for premier Indian pacer鈥檚 bagful of tricks at the Lord鈥檚 which is difficult to replicate even in the nets, admits the home skipper.
England lost the second Test by 336 runs and the Indian team management didn鈥檛 field its premier strike bowler due to workload issues.
Indian skipper Shubman Gill confirmed that world鈥檚 best fast bowler will be back during the third Test starting July 10 and Stokes wasn鈥檛 amused that he would be asked about the fast bowling talisman for zillionth time. 鈥淚 thought I鈥檇 get through a press conference without being asked about Jasprit Bumrah. We play against each other so often you know what you will be faced with so you put it into practise in training,鈥 Stokes said at the post-match press conference.
鈥淭ry to do what you can with the coaches and the sidearms, going wide on the crease, trying to give you practise like their bowling lineup. It鈥檚 always tough to replicate something that will come down at you in a game.
On their bowling front, Stokes didn鈥檛 commit if Jofra Archer will be unleashed on the Indian batting line-up in the next game, starting July 10 鈥淎gain, it鈥檒l be a decision that we have to make seeing how everyone pull up. We鈥檝e had him here this week to get around the group and build him up with his workloads. Everyone鈥檚 in consideration for the game at Lord鈥檚,鈥 Stokes said.
Stokes believes that as a team, England need to remain level-headed, neither get too ecstatic after victory nor too bogged down after defeat.
鈥淲e鈥檝e obviously had some unbelievable wins and some bad defeats. I feel I鈥檓 quite good and the team is quite good at staying level throughout those ups and downs. We knew coming into the series it wasn鈥檛 going to be easy,鈥 the England skipper said.
鈥淒isappointed with the loss here as it would have been great to carry the momentum over from the first game but we don鈥檛 find ourselves sitting here like that. We have to wipe this one under the carpet as quickly as we can because Lord鈥檚 day one will be coming round pretty quickly.
鈥淲e will have one or two days to get the bodies right and recover and all of sudden we will be out there flipping the coin. It鈥檚 about staying as level as you possibly can and not getting too up or low staying true to the fundamentals of what鈥檚 got this team to where we are,鈥 Stokes concluded. PTI BS KHS AT AT AT