Former India cricketer Dinesh Karthik has said that he doesn’t think Jasprit Bumrah would want to play the second Test against England at Edgbaston, since he has already bowled a lot of overs in the Headingley Test, but with a loss in the series opener, it has become a tricky call.
The series opener in Headingley showed that the Indian team are more reliant on Bumrah‘s services than they thought.
The Indian team trailing so early in the series has resulted in a serious debate regarding the games that Bumrah will play.
Karthik opined that the ace pacer would not want to play on a flat track at Edgbaston and instead wait for the Lord’s Test, which begins on July 10, which will also provide him with over two weeks’ rest.
“First of all, we need to see if Bumrah is playing. I doubt Bumrah would want to play at Edgbaston. I would think that he would wait. It is flat and it would give his body more time, he has bowled a lot of overs in this game,” Karthik said.
“The more rest, the better for him. I think he would love playing at Lord’s, but it is not about what he wants, but what the team feels he has to do as well,” Karthik added.
Bumrah, in his only outing at Edgbaston, the contest where England chased down 378 three years back, picked up five wickets at an average of 28.4.
“Everything about England tells you that you don’t need to play more than one spinner. If you are playing two spinners, then that genuinely weakens your batting. They need to be very sure of one thing: they can’t think what England will do,” Karthik said.
