India’s baffling Bumrah call, safety-first picks

Instead of backing wicket-takers such as Kuldeep, Gambhir and Gill pick players to bolster batting down the line for the Edgbaston Test

New Delhi: If “intent” was the buzzword of Virat Kohli’s captaincy, the early contender for Shubman Gill’s tenure is “safety first”. There is no other way to really explain India’s baffling selection calls for the second Test against England at Edgbaston, Birmingham.

India head coach Gautam Gambhir with Jasprit Bumrah and Akash Deep during warm up. (Reuters)

A fit Jasprit Bumrah was rested – despite the week’s break after the Headingley game – and one-Test-old batter Sai Sudharsan and bowling all-rounder Shardul Thakur were dropped to make way for pacer Akash Deep, batting allrounder Nitish Reddy and batting allrounder Washington Sundar.

“This is an important match for us, but the third match at Lord’s... there may be something more in the wicket and we thought we’ll play him there. We were very tempted to play (Kuldeep) but looking at the last match we wanted to add some depth to the batting,” explained Gill at the toss.

Depth to the batting when they really needed to be wondering where the 20 wickets are going to be coming from? It was a call that had many observers hopping mad.

“India’s selection for this Test is baffling,” said former Australia cricketer Tom Moody on X. “No Bumrah is one thing, but to only have 5 specialist batsmen is a gamble. The fixation on all-rounders who are there to offer depth with bat and ball has never worked. Specialists are always going to offer more over a Test.”

Former India skipper Sunil Gavaskar had a go over the decisions.

“If your top-order batters are not giving you the runs you expect, then Washington at seven or Nitish Reddy at eight won’t necessarily fix that, because those weren’t the batters who failed you in the first Test. You scored 830 runs. You didn’t score 380 in two innings — it was 830-plus. That’s a lot of runs,” he said on Sony Sports Network. “So, where you needed strengthening was in the wicket-taking department, not so much in the batting.”

And finally, speaking on-air with former England skipper Michael Atherton ahead of the match, former India skipper and coach Ravi Shastri slammed the team management for resting Bumrah.

“Very strange, baffling,” said Shastri. “If he’s fit to play, he should play. That decision should be entirely in the hands of the captain and head coach... a week between Test matches, this is an important Test match, a must-win game for India. If they have to stay alive in the series, then you need your premier fast bowler playing. And no ifs and buts, he should have been playing.”

But instead we have an example of decision-making that won’t go down well with anyone. Gill is in his first series as Test skipper and he’s allowed to make mistakes. But this line of thought showcases a fearful approach that is at odds with his words.

On the eve of the second Test, Gill had spoken confidently about wanting to go for a win.

“As a team or as a captain, you would always want to go into a Test match to be able to win. You never go into a Test thinking you want to go for a draw or you want to go out there experimenting something,” he had said. But the approach here seems to be saying that a draw without Bumrah will be great.

While it’s easy to be critical of Gill, coach Gautam Gambhir must share the blame. He should be helping the young skipper learn to trust his captaincy instinct in a Test but instead, he seems to be throttling it.

Over the last few years, India have consistently chosen to give extra protection to the batting rather than challenging them to get better. This saw off-spinner R Ashwin sitting in the dressing room far more often than he should have and now it looks like the same fate awaits Kuldeep Yadav.

Gill’s elevation to Test captaincy was supposed to be the start of a new era, but so far it just seems like more of the same old.