Bowling Over & Under Big Concern For India

Since Gautam Gambhir took over as head coach, one of the most identifiable trends with this Indian team is the preference for all-rounders over specialist bowlers in their bid to strengthen the bowling depth.

- FIROZ MIRZA @ Manchester

They chose to go with Shardul Thakur and Ravindra Jadeja at Leeds before replacing the former with Nitish Kumar Reddy and bringing in Washington Sundar in place of specialist batter, B Sai Sudharsan, in Edgbaston. The trio was then retained at Lord's match but injury to Reddy meant Thakur made it to the playing XI for the ongoing fourth Test here at the Old Trafford Ground. With their batting ability seems to be the deciding factor, most of these all-rounders seemingly remained underutilised with the ball. The latest on the list is left-hand batter and off-spinner Washington. After not bowling a single over on Day Two, he was handed the ball six overs before the lunch (69th over) on Friday. He sent in three overs before lunch but shortly after the break, Washington made the ball drift away from Ollie Pope to induce an outside edge. He followed it up with another, deceiving Harry Brook—the breakthroughs India were looking for all day.