After the inclusion of Prasidh Krishna in the main squad, there were a lot of speculations regarding the fitness of India’s pace attack for the ongoing Test series against England.
On Wednesday (September 1), however, bowling coach Bharat Arun clarified that Krishna’s addition is just a “precautionary measure” as they are looking at workload management of fast bowlers.
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While Ishant Sharma looked jaded in the third Test at Headingley, Mohammad Shami has bowled 96.5 overs in the series so far. On the other hand, Jasprit Bumrah (108 overs) and Mohammed Siraj (100.5 overs) have delivered more than 100 overs across the three Tests.
“To be honest, we are looking at the availability of fast bowlers for us in this series and I don’t think we should look too far ahead,” Arun told reporters on the eve of the fourth Test when asked how the team management will monitor their workload keeping IPL and T20 World Cup in mind.
“We have to look at how many fast bowlers with fresh legs we can play at any given point of time. It is being looked at purely from the point of view of this series and not any further,” he added
The coach also acknowledged that there were some concerns about Ishant’s form in the Leeds Test but they have been put to rest.
“Ishant’s form in the last game as you said was a bit of concern and but we have things sorted out. Prasidh is just a precautionary inclusion.
“We needed to induce him into the Test team now, just in case. He is being included in the team considering all the workload management issues and there’s nothing more to it than that.”
Team India were hammered by an innings and 76 runs in the third Test last week. The visitors were bowled out for 78 and 278 in the two innings while England piled up a massive 432 in their only innings.
Arun said he would have liked to see how English bowlers performed if they were all out for 78 on the first day of a Test match.
“If you look at the Lord’s Test, you would say Indian bowling was better than English bowling and that’s the time when Indian bowlers could swing the bowl and they did right at that time.
“In the last Test, yes, I would agree with you, English bowling looked a lot better. I would also like to see how they would be bowling if they are defending a score of 78. Yes, there is always room for improvement. It will be different cup of tea in the next game,” he stated.
(With PTI inputs)
