On his captaincy debut, Jasprit Bumrah made a mark with both bat and ball. He picked up five wickets in the match and scored an unbeaten 32 in the first innings, during which he smashed Stuart Broad for the most expensive over in Test cricket. As far as his captaincy goes, Bumrah the leader, with his field placements was impressive and although the result was not one that he expected, his overall captaincy has been rated well by experts and former cricketers alike.
Karsan Ghavri, the former India pacer, was though not at all in favour of Bumrah captaining, saying not every fast bowler can be a good captain. Ghavri, who picked up 452 wickets from 159 First-Class matches for Mumbai and Saurashtra pointed out that a fast bowler needs to take care of several aspects of the game, and the added responsibility on Bumrah, who had never captained any team at any level prior, was not the ideal choice to captain India in the series decider.
“Bumrah has never captained any team. Forget about a Ranji Trophy team, he has not even led a club side. Look, a captain’s mind is totally different. He needs to keep thinking about making field placements and effecting bowling changes and strategising throughout. In the dressing room, I’m sure [head coach] Rahul Dravid and the other coaches made a lot of plans, but when the 11 players go onto the field, the captain must execute them. Bumrah couldn’t do that,” Ghavri told Mid-Day.
Ghavri added that if Rohit did not get fit on time, Virat Kohli should have shown the willingness to take up the role for the series-decider.
“When Rohit Sharma was not available for this Test [having tested positive for COVID-19], Kohli should have stepped up and said that I will take up the responsibility to lead this team. Winning and losing is a part of the game, but in such a difficult situation, I felt Kohli should have put his hand up,” he mentioned.
