Chennai, Sep 17 (FN Agency) Indian captain Rohit Sharma on Tuesday said with the team slated to play ten tests as part of World Test Championship series during the next 3-4 months, managing the work load of the bowlers, especially their leading pacers like Jasprit Bumrah and Mohd Siraj, is the key. Talking to reporters today ahead of the first test against Bangladesh beginning on Thursday, Rohit said the team management was aware of the strain that could place on their players, particularly their fast bowlers and have laid out plans to protect them.
India will play two tests against Bangladesh, three against visiting New Zealand and then will fly to Australia for the five test Border-Gavaskar Trophy from November to January in which Bumrah and Siraj were expected to take on the heavy burden. “We have laid out some plans on how we are going to manage these bowlers,” Rohit said. “But again, it all depends on the workload that has been carried by them in these games. So yeah, we will monitor that. I think we have done that pretty well”, he said. “Even when we played against England (at home, earlier this year), we managed to get Bumrah and Siraj one Test match off. So it all depends on how the body feels at that particular time, what the strength and conditioning is, and what the physios feel about them, when is the right time to give them a break from the game, and then take the call”, he said. “You want your best players to play all the games, but that’s not possible because there is so much cricket that happens,” Rohit said.
“It is not only Test cricket, there is T20 cricket happening (against Bangladesh and South Africa) in the middle of the Test series as well. So you have got to understand everything, and then see what is best for the team and then manage your bowlers around it”, Rohit said Stating that every match is important, the skipper said the World Test Championship table is quite wide open. “We want to win every game. So it doesn’t matter where we play in two months’ time. We want to win here. We want to win this Test match.” That’s why the team arrived in Chennai a week before the start of the game, to have the best preparation possible. “So in terms of preparation, I feel we are quite ready for this game. It was a good little preparation that we had before this Test match. It was important to utilise that time, and I thought we utilised this little camp that we had in Chennai pretty well”, he said.