IND vs ENG 2nd Test: Did India pick a defensive XI without Jasprit Bumrah?

Mint

12 hours ago

IND vs ENG 2nd Test: There were two things that were known before India embarked on their tour of England. First, Jasprit Bumrah is the world's best bowler. Second, he could not play all five Tests in the series.
There might have been a very small chance of playing four Tests, but that vanished when the first Test went on for all five days and Bumrah had a full workload in the game, delivering 43.4 overs across two innings, the most among India's pacers. If the first Test had finished quickly and Bumrah had had an easier game, he could have conceivably played the second and third Tests with the gaps between the games.
With Bumrah unavailable, the main question confronting India's team management is: How are we going to get 20 wickets?
India would have asked that of themselves before the second Test against England at Edgbaston. The way they have answered it, though, has left many people unhappy because India have picked a defensive XI rather than an attacking one.
The short answer is: no. It is very tempting to make him play. It will always be that way. He is the best bowler in the world, so naturally, everyone wants him to play all the time. But as the five-Test series in Australia showed, that comes with significant risks.
Fast bowling is already an unnatural act. Your body goes through bizarre contortions and stress every ball. It is the most physically demanding job in cricket, which is why injuries to fast bowlers are common. Bumrah's action adds another layer to it.
What it means is that India must endure short-term pain for long-term gain. Bumrah is India's golden goose. You do not want to kill the golden goose by overloading. So, once it has been decided by medical experts that the safe limit for Bumrah is three Tests, you stick to that. The team management has done exactly that, and they should be lauded for it.
However, once you do not have your best wicket-taking weapon, you need to plan how you will get 20 wickets.
India have three spinners in their squad: Ravindra Jadeja, Washington Sundar and Kuldeep Yadav. In England, the man who gives you the best chance to take wickets is undoubtedly Kuldeep. And yet, India picked the other two spinners above him.
Jadeja and Washington are both better batters than Kuldeep, and give India a cushion that the team lacked in the first Test. The question that the team management would have wrestled with is whether Kuldeep's extra wicket-taking threat was enough to offset the security of having Washington at No 8.
In Test cricket, padding the batting instead of adding teeth to the bowling will always be a defensive move. India opted to pad the batting, which is why they are facing questions about their choice.
As former India pacer Dodda Ganesh put it succinctly, selection to the XI seemed to be determined by a player's secondary skill.
He said in a post on X, 'Kuldeep should bat in top 3 for Uttar Pradesh in the #RanjiTrophy and get some runs, to be picked to play for India in the tests. I don't see any other way he can force his way back into this setup where one's secondary skill dictates the team selection #ENGvIND'
India not only picked Jadeja and Washington, but they also added Nitish Kumar Reddy. All three of them can bowl, but you would think that in England, none of the three can be strike bowlers. India have thus picked three bowlers who are seemingly more suited to do a holding job, and will have to depend on just their three pacers to do the bulk of the wicket-taking, which is odd in an attack of so many bowlers.
It is possible that India thinks getting 20 wickets without Bumrah is not very likely. It could be that they think the rest of the bowlers are either not experienced enough right now or lack the penetrative skills to winkle out England twice.
In that case, it makes sense to stack the batting rather than the bowling. Because then India gives itself the chance to bat big and get wickets via scoreboard pressure. It also gives India greater security for saving the Test.
If the team management did indeed think this way, their selection of the playing XI makes sense, but it also means there is less faith in the rest of the bowling attack without Bumrah. Is that lack of faith justified? After all, each of the bowlers in the squad has had some sparkling moments of their own, or has come up by stacking performances in domestic cricket.
No bowler comes fully formed and menacing at the international level. If India does get on top in the second Test, but fails to close it out, it may be something for them to ponder.