London, Aug 1 (IANS) India assistant coach Ryan ten Doeschate said the team management felt “it was right to honour Bumrah’s call to play just three games” of the five-match series against England, suggesting the long-term future of the No.1 ranked Test bowler was more important than a single Test match.

Bumrah completed his scheduled workload of playing in just three Tests across the series during the recent contest in Manchester and the team decided to take no risks with the star pacer for the fifth and final Test in London.

“It’s quite a complex issue around Bumrah. We obviously want to wheel him in, but we also want to respect where his body’s at, and on the basis of that, we just felt that it wasn’t worth including him in the squad,” ten Doeschate told reporters after end of Day 1 play.

He has bowled a large number of overs, I know it doesn’t always seem like that because he’s only played three Tests and he only bowled in one innings in Manchester. But if you look at the loads, he’s bowled a lot of overs, and like he did say coming into the tour, he was going to be available for three games, and we just felt it was right to honour that call,’ he added.

Ten Doeschate said there was no exact science to consider when choosing which matches the fast bowler would sit out across the five-game series.

“Every time I’ve answered this question I’ve spoken about like putting the pieces of the puzzles together and guys were baffled when we didn’t play him in the third Test, and our thinking yeah was that The Oval, yes it’s got bounce but it’s normally a fairly good wicket for batting on, and we thought we’d roll the dice and if we’d won the toss we would have bowled.

“In hindsight you would have loved to have him here, but you would also have said if we come here 3-1 down that we didn’t use him there, so it’s trying to not guess but trying to look into the future and then see how we can manage him, and maybe England have got it spot on leaving the best bowling wicket for the last Test after he’s played three,” the assistant coach said.

The assistant coach also said it wasn’t fair to say that Bumrah was picking and choosing games, considering his injury-prone past and back surgeries.

“I don’t think picking and choosing is a fair comment to Bumrah, he did say he was going to play three games, he left it up to us which three he played, we’ve tried to manage the situation, it’s not ideal, I guess giving those guys attention, the guys who aren’t playing particularly when you’re carrying 18 is important,” he said.

“Make them know that you’re making all the decisions in good faith, in the best interest of the team, and just on that, all the guys who haven’t played, they’ve been fantastic, they’ve trained the house down, they’re disappointed when they get left out,” he added.

–IANS

bc/