India's baffling Bumrah call, safety-first picks

If "intent" was the buzzword of Virat Kohli's captaincy, the early contender for Shubman Gill's tenure is "safety first". There is no other way to really explain India's baffling selection calls for the second Test against England at Edgbaston, Birmingham.

- Ashish Magotra

NEW DELHI: If "intent" was the buzzword of Virat Kohli's captaincy, the early contender for Shubman Gill's tenure is "safety first". There is no other way to really explain India's baffling selection calls for the second Test against England at Edgbaston, Birmingham.

A fit Jasprit Bumrah was rested — despite the week's break after the Headingley game — and one-Test-old batter Sai Sudharsan and bowling allrounder Shardul Thakur were dropped to make way for pacer Akash Deep, batting allrounder Nitish Reddy and batting allrounder Washington Sundar.

"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'll play him (Bumrah) there. We were very tempted to play (Kuldeep) but looking at the last match we wanted to add some depth to the batting," explained Gill at the toss.

Depth to the batting when they really needed to be wondering where the 20 wickets are going to be coming from? It was a call that had many observers hopping mad.