India's support coach Ryan ten Doeschate has supported the decision to rest Jasprit Bumrah for the fifth Test with England, saying that protecting the world's number one Test bowler's long-term fitness was more important than playing him in the final Test of the series.
Bumrah had already completed his pre-decided three-Test workload in the five-Test series, having played his last game in Manchester. Keeping that in mind, the team decided not to take a chance with him for the last Test at London's The Oval.
It's a fairly complicated situation around Bumrah. We naturally want to wheel him in, but we also want to be respectful of where his body's at, and on the back of that, we just felt it wasn't worth bringing him into the squad," ten Doeschate told the press after Day 1.
Even though the pace spearhead was only used once in an innings of the Manchester Test, ten Doeschate explained that the overall bowling burden across the series for Bumrah was considerable.
"He has bowled a lot of overs, I know it doesn't necessarily look like that because he's only played three Tests and he only bowled in one Manchester innings. But if you consider the loads, he's bowled plenty of overs, and like he did say when he came on the tour, he was going to be available for three games, and we just felt it was appropriate to honour that call," he said.
The assistant coach also confessed that deciding which particular matches Bumrah would miss wasn't regulated by any equation.
"Each time I've replied to this question I've mentioned like fitting the pieces of the puzzles together and guys were confused when we didn't play him in the third Test, and our rationale yeah was that The Oval, yes it's got bounce but it's usually a reasonably good wicket to bat on, and we figured we'd take a chance and if we'd won the toss we would have bowled."
You look back in hindsight you would have wanted him here, but you would have then said if we arrive here 3-1 down that we hadn't played him there, so it's trying not to second-guess but trying to look forward and then try to work out how we can accommodate him, and perhaps England have done it perfectly and saved the best bowling wicket for the third Test after he has played three," he said.
ten Doeschate also came to Bumrah's defense from the charge that he was cherry-picking his games, attributing instead to the pacer's physical woes and injury record.
"I don't believe choosing and choosing is a nice thing to say about Bumrah, he did say he was going to play three games, he left it in our hands which three he played, we've tried to handle the situation, it's not perfect, I suppose giving those lads attention, the lads not playing particularly when you're carrying 18 is important," he said.
He also highlighted the professionalism of the squad members who were benched during the series.
"Make them know that you’re making all the decisions in good faith, in the best interest of the team, and just on that, all the guys who haven’t played, they’ve been fantastic, they’ve trained the house down, they’re disappointed when they get left out," he concluded.
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