AB de Villiers Wants India To Use Bumrah Like Dale Steyn

Jasprit Bumrah’s workload was a major talking point ahead of the India tour of England, and it continues to be so after India lost the first Test, and it was reported that Bumrah won’t play the second Test. 

Speaking on the same on his YouTube channel, former South Africa batting great AB de Villiers has suggested that Team India should look to employ Bumrah in only really important series and games against big sides, and rest him for the remaining matches. That’s what South Africa did with Dale Steyn, who has more than 400 Test wickets to his name. 

“He is probably the top bowler in the world in all formats right now. So, it’s very difficult to decide a way to rest him,” de Villiers said in a video posted on his Youtube channel.

“This Test series probably would’ve been the one, in my opinion, to get him ready for all five Test matches. That’s what we used to do with Dale (Steyn). Rest him in lesser important T20 and ODI series and get him ready for the big Test series against Australia, England, and India away from home, New Zealand to a certain extent, depending on the rankings at that time.”

De Villiers wondered if the decision to rest Bumrah from two Tests in the series was taken due to him being mismanaged by the Indian side. 

“I don’t know if it was mismanagement or perhaps because he recently got back from injury, sort of saw the IPL as the warmup phase. Maybe, went to the surgeon, who let him know, ‘You can’t play the five Test matches.’ So, I mean you got to respect that, and at the end of the day, it’s up to Team India to sort of manage him well,” the former Proteas batter added. 

Notably, India struggled whenever Bumrah didn’t have the ball in his hands during the Leeds Test, as the other pacers failed to give the team the right amount of control while striking on regular intervals. As a result, India lost the game by five wickets despite scoring 471 in the first innings.