Birmingham: Pace spearhead Jasprit Bumrah will return to the Indian playing XI against England in the third Test at Lord’s next week after sitting out of the second match in Birmingham, captain Shubman Gill said on Wednesday.
Bumrah was rested from the second Test at Edgbaston, as part of his workload management, confirmed Gill.
He played in the first Test at Leeds, which India lost by five wickets.
“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 would play him (Bumrah) there.”
England elected to bowl in Birmingham as the hosts fielded an unchanged team. But India made three changes as Akash Deep replaced Bumrah, while Washington Sundar and Nitish Kumar Reddy coming in for Sai Sudharsan and Shardul Thakur respectively.
Gill reasoned why they had decided against left-arm wrist spinner Kuldeep Yadav.
“We were tempted to play Kuldeep (Yadav) but decided to add some depth to the batting.”
The third Test at Lord’s will start on July 10.
The Indian team management had declared at the start of the series that Bumrah will only play in three Tests out of five.
