Jasprit Bumrah speaks on how India missed a fifth-bowler against England's tailenders
The fifth England – India Test at the Oval saw India repeating the same deed that they have been doing over and over again in the previous games. After reducing England's top-order with cheap scores, the visiting bowlers yet again failed to capitalize on the opportunity thus created, not being able to bowl out the tail-end before England recuperated from the initial tumble-down.
At the end of the 2nd day's play, Indian pacer Jasprit Bumrah and spoke up openly on his team's lack of proper execution, when it came to planning and bowling against the England lower-order.
Indian bowlers had restricted England to 198/7 at the end of Day 1, and it is from such a precarious situation that the English rose on Day 2, to eventually end their stint at a satisfactory 332. Jos Buttler's 89 proved to be the backbone of England's rescue efforts, and with a good companionship in Stuart Broad (38), he led the attack back to the Indian camp.
Jasprit Bumrah lamented the lack of a fifth bowler, as he felt that an extra bowler would have helped the remainder of Kohli's bowling options an ample resting-time before they could come back and attack harder.
For the fifth Test, Indian management had decided to field the newbie batsman Hanuma Vihari instead of Hardik Pandya, the all-rounder who played all the previous Tests. Pandya's absence meant that India's pace-bowling opportunities were limited with just Ishant Sharma, Mohammad Shami and Bumrah himself operating on the particular duty.
Bumrah was then quizzed on whether there were any specific plans for the lower-order batsmen as such, to which he said, “There has been no specific planning for lower order batsmen. You plan for each batsman, even if they are lower-order, we respect them. We tried to execute plans today but it didn’t work.”
The pacer also talked about Buttler and explained how he took his chances because he was batting with the tail-enders.
“When you are batting with the tail, you can take your chances, take your freedom and our batsmen have done that as well before in the first Test when Virat was playing with the tail. So you have a lot of freedom and you can express yourself — you have nothing to lose,” he concluded.
India is currently at 240/7, in reply, as Day 3's play is going on. The match is poised well in England's favour, thanks to Buttler and co's exploits from Day 2.