England head coach Brendon McCullum talked about tackling the threat Indian bowler Jasprit Bumrah possesses and said that his team will find a way to encounter that in the Rajkot Test match. England flew to Abu Dhabi for a training camp and will return to India on February 12, three days before the third Test match at Saurashtra Cricket Association Stadium.
Jasprit Bumrah produced his best figures in Tests at home by scalping nine wickets in two innings in Visakhapatnam as India registered a dominating 106-run win. Bumrah’s spell in the first innings where he picked six wickets, including valuable picks of Joe Root, Ben Stokes, Ollie Pope and Jonny Bairstow, changed the momentum of the game.
The 30-year-old pacer is topping the leaderboard with 15 wickets in four innings in the five-match series while the pace bowlers from both teams are failing to make an impact. Bumrah will be key for India to take a lead in the series when both teams next clash in Rajkot but McCullum believes that England batters will counter Bumrah’s threat.
“There are contrasting ways of going about it, and I have always said it is important to bounce off whoever you are batting with and the contrasting skills you possess,” McCullum told Cricinfo. “We will see where we get to. For now, we have to tip our cap to Jasprit and say that spell (in the first innings of the second Test) was as good as anything we have seen so far on this trip.
“It’s all condition-dependent. When the ball is swinging like that he becomes even more of a threat. He is a fantastic bowler in all forms of the game. He is unique with his release points and with how much swing he can generate in the air. No doubt he is very good, but we have come up against very good bowlers all through the last 18 months or so and found ways to counter them and that is what we have got to do in this one.”