It’s really an honour to have him in the team: Gautam Gambhir on Jasprit Bumrah
India is going to host Bangladesh for a two-Test match series at the M.A Chidambaram stadium, Chennai from Thursday, September 19th, 2024. Team India is going through an important change after appointing Gautam Gambhir as the head coach of the squad.
Gautam Gambhir talked about how his influence has grown outside cricket ahead of his debut Test series India head coach. He also mentioned that people always talk about batters in India and how the nation became batting-obsessed.
“It has not happened many times in India where we started talking about the bowler,” Gambhir said. “I think it has always been about batters, batters and batters. India at one stage was a batting-obsessed nation. And you’ve got to give credit to Bumrah, [Mohammed] Shami, [Mohammed] Siraj, [R] Ashwin, [Ravindra] Jadeja that now they are turning this intention into a bowling obsessed… not bowling obsessed nation that we started talking about the bowler,” Gambhir as quoted by ESPNCricinfo.
He also shared that the team is lucky enough to have a bowler like Jasprit Bumrah in the Test squad. Despite having only played 36 Tests, Bumrah has impressive stats. Roughly once every three Test matches, he is taking five-wicket hauls (ten so far) and he has been instrumental in some of India’s most well-known victories including those at the Oval in 2021, Melbourne in 2018 and Visakhapatnam in 2024.
“Bumrah is the best fast bowler in the world in all three formats. And it’s not just his performance, it’s just his hunger as well. The best part is that he wants to play as much Test cricket as he can. I think what he has done in T20 format in West Indies to what he can do in red-ball cricket, what he did against England. So I feel that yes, it is actually not even a luxury. I think it’s really an honour that we’ve got someone like Bumrah playing for us and sitting in that dressing room. We can make a change, we can make a difference at any stage of the game. So yes, hopefully, we can do the same in this series and going forward as well,” Gambhir as quoted by ESPNCricinfo.
