India slumped to a five-wicket defeat against England in the first Test of the five-match series at Headingley. After setting up a target of 371 for the hosts during the final session of Day 4, the Men in Blue succumbed to the pressure as England chased down the target rather comfortably on the fifth day. Star pacer Jasprit Bumrah also wasn't able to help India much in the final innings..
Though he picked up five scalps in England's first innings and massively helped India in taking a six-run lead, Bumrah ended up going wicket-less on the second occasion, conceding 57 runs in the 19 overs that he bowled.
Bumrah was handed a lot of overs against England
The 31-year-old bowled almost 44 overs in the match, the second-most for an Indian bowler only behind Ravindra Jadeja. Bumrah was also seen leaving the field a couple of times during the encounter. Ahead of the series, India head coach Gautam Gambhir had made it clear that Bumrah will only be featuring in three out of the five Tests against England as the pacer needs to take care of his body.
Ahead of the second Test at Edgbaston which is set to begin from July 2, former India cricketer Dinesh Karthik believes that Bumrah would be absent for the match as his body needs a lot of rest.
"First of all, we need to see if Bumrah is playing. I doubt Bumrah would want to play at Edgbaston, I would think that he would wait. It is flat, and it would give his body more time, he has bowled a lot of overs in this game. The more rest, the better for him," Karthik said on Cricbuzz.
Karthik stated that England are backing themselves to chase down whatever target they are provided with and further added that India's main focus now should be to pick up all the 20 wickets in the match.
“They need to be very sure of one thing, they can't think what England will do. What England are doing is very simple, they have picked even if it is an ordinary bowling, and are saying you give us whatever you want to chase, we will back ourselves to do it. Then India have to think, what can they do to pick 20 wickets?" he said.
With the victory at Headingley, England took a 1-0 lead and also started their new World Test Championship (WTC) cycle on a positive note. It will be interesting to see how India replies to the defeat in the second Test of the series in Birmingham.