Former England captain Michael Atherton was surprised to see Jasprit Bumrah and Kuldeep Yadav’s names missing from Team India’s Playing XI in the second Test. Former England cricketer Michael Atherton has thrown in a new angle in the Jasprit Bumrah selection conundrum. He said that Bumrah might really want to play the third Test at Lord’s, which starts just three days after the second Test at Edgbaston.
In such a situation, Bumrah’s workload management will also come into question, as he wouldn’t get a lot of recovery time if he plays the second Test as well. Moreover, Michael Atherton added that India would look to have Bumrah’s skills in the fourth Test at Old Trafford as well, which is helpful for pacers.
While Bumrah was rested to manage his workload, Washington Sundar was preferred over Kuldeep. The visiting team wanted to strengthen the batting department, and the spin all-rounder was given the nod. Sai Sudharsan and Shardul Thakur were dropped, with Nitish Kumar Reddy and Akash Deep joining the team.
Former Indian wicketkeeper batter now commentator Dinesh Karthik took a sarcastic dig at Micheal Atherton’s criticizm on selection expressing his view on the same.
Dinesh Karthik takes a sarcastic dig at Michael Atherton’s criticizm on India’s team selection.
Star India wicketkeeper Dinesh Karthik on Wednesday had a sarcastic dig in store for his fellow commentator Michael Atherton, who criticised India’s playing XI for the ongoing second Test against England at Edgbaston, where they didn’t go with what would probably have been called a perfect XI.
With the series already placed in the early stages in England’s favour, the Indian team made some bold calls, which included resting ace pacer Jasprit Bumrah and not including Kuldeep Yadav in the mix.
Michael Atherton opined that he would have played a different bowling attack, considering that India are looking for a way to make a comeback in the series.
“If I had been in their shoes, it would have been Bumrah for the big game, can’t afford to lose this game. I would have picked Siraj, who I thought improved throughout that game at Headingley,” Michael Atherton said while speaking on Sky Sports.
“I would have picked the left-armer, Arshdeep Singh, for swing and to create some footmarks by the right-hander’s off stump for Kuldeep Yadav, who I would have also played, and also Ravindra Jadeja,” Michael Atherton added.
“Good, thank you. I think Gautam Gambhir would appreciate that a lot. You answered it very nicely, all of India would be impressed,” Karthik said.
The Indian team’s changes haven’t panned out well on Day 1 till now as Karun Nair faltered in his outing at No. 3, scoring 31 runs before being dismissed by Brydon Carse right before the lunch break. Meanwhile, a soft dismissal cost Yashasvi Jaiswal a well-deserved century as India ambled to 182/3 at tea on day one of the second Test against England at Edgbaston.
Skipper Shubman Gill (42 batting off 109) looked comfortable in the middle alongside his deputy Rishabh Pant (14 batting off 28) on another good batting pitch in the five-match series.
England captain Ben Stokes, who has a knack of picking up wickets out of nowhere, had Jaiswal (87 off 107) caught behind off a short and wide ball. Jaiswal perhaps went too hard at the delivery, just to offer a simple catch to Jamie Smith behind stumps.
However till the end of the Day India finished with 310 for 5 with Shubman Gill forging a briliant century and sharing an unbeaten 99 runs partnership with Ravindra Jadeja. The changes India made to bolster its lower order batting failure at Headingly till now didnt bore fruitful and it would be interesting to see in the remainder of the test match that how the Indian team performs.
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