The comment left Bumrah at a loss for words.
A call on premier pacer Jasprit Bumrah playing the second Test will be taken in the next 24 hours but India assistant coach Ryan ten Doeschate is pretty sure that his team will take the field with two spinners at Edgbaston.
There is a growing clamour to include wrist spinner Kuldeep Yadav in the playing eleven but to maintain the batting depth, Washington Sundar is also in the mix to start alongside Ravindra Jadeja.
All three spinners bowled in the nets on Monday.
Bumrah, who would be playing three out of five Tests in the series as part of workload management, held a two coloured ball (red and white) at the start of the training session before picking up the Dukes ball to bowl only towards the end of the session.
He bowled roughly three overs, unlike teammates Mohammed Siraj, Akash Deep and Prasidh Krishna, who bowled a lot upfront.
With 0-1 down, India find themselves in a conundrum over picking Bumrah’s three Tests.
“He’s available for the game obviously. We know from the start he’s only going to play three out of the five. He’s had eight days to recover from the last test,” said Doeschate “But given conditions and workload and how we think we can best manage for the next four games, we haven’t made a call on that. We’re going to see what the other guys are with their workload as well.
“If we feel like there’s value in playing him in this Test, we’ll make that call at the very last minute. But I’m talking about weather, how the pitch is going to play. Are we better off holding him back for Lord’s and maybe Manchester or the Oval? So it’s all those factors.” Is it tempting to include Bumrah given India are trailing in the series? “It is, but we also feel we can go 1-1 or keep the score at 1-0 without Jasprit. Again, that’s putting the eggs in the back end of the series. We’re going to need him at some stage as well. You’ve got to decide when you’re going to play your strongest suit.
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