India’s premier fast bowler Jasprit Bumrah was the captain of the Indian Test side when they last played a test in Australia. Jasprit was always in the captaincy race but his workload and fitness was also an aspect selectors kept an eye on while considering the leadership of the team for England Tour and the future. Shubman Gill is appointed as India’s next Test captain and he will start his captaincy assignment from the First Test against England on June 20 at Headingley, Leeds.
Bumrah has captained India in three test matches so far. He was the one that led India to 295-run over Australia at Perth in the First Test against Australia, eventually being the only Test India won at that tour. He has lost two of his other matches against England and Australia as captain, away from home.
Notably, Bumrah will not play all the five tests due to workload management. Shubman while talking in an interview with India’s former wicket-keeper batter Dinesh Karthik at Sky Sports shared clarity on Bumrah-
“Depending on how we go about matches, you know, there might be rain in one of the matches. So I think it’s more based on match to match, and see how much workload there has been on him. And that’s what you’re trying to look at. You see how much workload he has had in this match. We don’t want to have a predetermined set: ‘Okay, these are the matches that he would want to play.’ Because there are so many factors that can go or not go in your favor, that can determine whether he is going to play the next match or not,” the 25-year-old said.
While Talking to Dinesh Karthik at Sky Sports, Jasprit Bumrah revealed why he didn’t become the Test captain.
“Before Rohit & Virat retired – During the IPL, I had spoken to BCCI, that I have discussed about workload going forward in a five-match Test series, I have spoken to people who manage my back – we came to conclusion that we have to be little more smart, then I called the BCCI that I don’t want to be looked at the leadership role because I won’t be able to play all the Test matches, BCCI was looking at me as the leadership role but I have to say no to them because it’s not ideal when someone is leading for 3 tests then some other have to lead rest of the tests so it’s not fair for the team as I wanted to put team first,” the 31-year-old said.
India Test Squad –
Shubman Gill (c), Rishabh Pant (wk), Yashasvi Jaiswal, KL Rahul, Sai Sudharsan, Abhimanyu Easwaran, Karun Nair, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Ravindra Jadeja, Dhruv Jurel (wk), Washington Sundar, Shardul Thakur, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj, Prasidh Krishna, Akash Deep, Arshdeep Singh, Kuldeep Yadav
England Test Squad For First Test –
Ben Duckett, Joe Root, Zak Crawley, Harry Brook, Ben Stokes (c), Jacob Bethell, Chris Woakes, Ollie Pope, Jamie Smith, Samuel James Cook, Brydon Carse, Shoaib Bashir, Josh Tongue, Jamie Overton
