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Former India all-rounder Irfan Pathan wasn't a fan of Jasprit Bumrah 'picking and choosing' matches during the Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy. The pacer featured in only three out of the five Tests in the series, missing out on the second and fifth match. The 31-year-old finished the series with 14 scalps which isn't bad by any means, however his wickets weren't able to get the Men in Blue to victory. In fact, the visitors only recorded wins in the matches where Bumrah was sitting on the sidelines.
The speedster claimed two five-wicket hauls in the five-match assignment, one each at Headingley and Lord's. It was Bumrah's performance in the fourth Test which was quite underwhelming as the pacer only managed to pick up two scalps and even ended up giving away 112 runs in his 33-over spell. Notably, this was the first time that Bumrah had conceded more than 100 runs in a Test inning.
Pathan has now criticized Bumrah for being overly concerned with his workload and for not putting in his 100% effort during the Tests against England. He pointed out that there were many moments where the seamer could have pushed harder in order to bowl more overs.
“There were moments, like when a sixth over was needed. I spoke about this during commentary as well. Joe Root had been dismissed by him 11 times, and in that Lord’s Test, Bumrah bowled five overs. Just one more over, the sixth, could have pushed harder. I felt he held back a little there. There was also some pick-and-choose, which I’ve always been against, and that was visible too," Pathan said on his YouTube channel.
“To be fair, whenever he played, he did perform. He took a five-wicket haul and got his name on the Lord’s honours board. But when you are the number one bowler, there’s an expectation of number one-level performance, and I felt he didn’t quite live up to that,” he added.
Pathan gave a mediocre rating to Bumrah
Pathan also analyzed Bumrah's individual performance throughout the series and rated it as 6/10, pointing out that India never won a match that the latter featured in.
“Bumrah will get six out of ten. Why? The reason is that when you're a senior player, there is a lot of responsibility on you to win matches. He played in three Tests, and India didn’t win any of them," Pathan stated.
“Let’s go back to the first Test. He took five wickets in the first innings but didn’t get a single wicket in the second innings. At that crucial time, when your main match-winner is expected to step up and win the game, it’s up to him to find a way, whether it’s over the wicket, around the wicket, yorkers, slower balls, bouncers, to create pressure. In the Leeds Test, we didn’t see that pressure being built. England ended up scoring heavily, and Bumrah didn’t take a single wicket, which was a bit surprising. And this didn’t happen just once,” he further added.
Meanwhile, India's next Test assignment will be a two-match series against West Indies which will commence from September 2. It remains to be seen if Bumrah will be called up to the squad for the series or if he will be rested in order to continue his workload managament.
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