Will Jasprit Bumrah play in England in India? Shubman Gill replied after headingley defeat

Team India has gotten the worst possible start. The visitors have lost the opening Test of the England tour, despite setting up a mammoth 371-run target. What makes that loss even worse is that Jasprit Bumrah was playing the Headingley Test. Prior to the 5-match Test series, Bumrah had confirmed that he won’t feature in 2 matches.

Since he’s played the first game, the ace pacer will miss two of the next four games. That isn’t great for India. If they haven’t been able to win with the world’s best Test bowler in the team, how will they win without him? And they have already gone 0-1 down.

Will Jasprit Bumrah play in the India vs England 2nd Test?

If the visitors still want to aim at winning the India vs England Test series, they need to level things up in Edgbaston. Therefore, the biggest question is, will Bumrah play in Birmingham? India captain Shubman Gill was asked the very same question after losing the Headingley Test.

He kept it open-ended. He neither denied the possibility of Bumrah skipping the Test nor confirmed his participation. “It’s more game by game; we have a good break after this test. We will think about it,” said Gill.

Considering there is a 7-day break between the two Test matches, there is a good possibility that Bumrah might just play in Birmingham. Perhaps Gill had the same thing in mind as well. Despite the game slipping away, he didn’t bowl Bumrah much in the last session of the India vs England 1st Test.

In the entire 5-day match, Bumrah bowled 43.4 overs. That is the most for any pacer in the match. Mohammed Siraj was the second most bowled, with 41 overs. One of the reasons why England pacers didn’t bowl as much despite fielding for more overs was due to them having a proper 5th bowler in Ben Stokes, who delivered 35 overs. While India’s 5th bowler, Shardul Thakur, threw down just 16 overs across both innings.

Jasprit Bumrah’s bowling output in Headingley