India are struggling from ‘bubble fatigue’ amid the COVID-19 pandemic and the players are feeling the effects of being on the road for six months, fast bowler Jasprit Bumrah said after their defeat against New Zealand.
Incidentally, the players have been on the road since the Indian Premier League (IPL) season began in April. The test team also toured England before the COVID-hit IPL resumed in the United Arab Emirates in September.
Not the result we wanted, but we will look to bounce back in the matches ahead. #TeamIndia #T20WorldCup #INDvNZ pic.twitter.com/A61JjoITe1
— BCCI (@BCCI) October 31, 2021
When quizzed about the same during a post-match press conference, Jasprit Bumrah said:
“Absolutely, sometimes you need a break. You miss your family sometimes, you have been on the road for six months. All of that, at times, plays on the back of your mind. But, when you are on the field, you don’t think about all of those things. You don’t control the scheduling. Obviously, staying in a bubble for such a long period of time does play a role on the players’ minds. But this is the time we are living in, there’s a pandemic going on. We try to adapt but sometimes bio-bubble fatigue does creep in. It is the way it is, you cannot control a lot over there.”
As a batting unit, we tried to give ourselves some cushion – Jasprit Bumrah
Put in to bat first, in Dubai on Sunday, India could only manage 110 for 7 in their allotted 20 overs. Ravindra Jadeja was the top scorer for India managing 26 runs. New Zealand chased down the total in 14.3 overs as well.
Explaining their strategy, Jasprit Bumrah asserted that they wanted to play an attacking brand of cricket to give some extra cushion to the bowlers.
“We knew that, in the second innings, dew does play a massive factor. As a batting unit, we tried to give ourselves some cushion. We wanted to get some extra runs that could give us the advantage in the second innings. In the process, we played a lot of attacking shots and that didn’t come off today. But that was the approach as a batting unit. In the second innings, batting does get easier, so we wanted to give that cushion to the bowlers.”
New Zealand win the game, but #TeamIndia will look to make amends in their next match of the #T20WorldCup. #INDvNZ
Scorecard ▶️ https://t.co/ZXELFVZhDp pic.twitter.com/Bvkz3BHshm
— BCCI (@BCCI) October 31, 2021
Jasprit Bumrah, who was the only bowler who picked up 2 wickets and ended up with the figures of 2/19, added that batting became a lot easier in the second innings compared to the first on that pitch.
“When we bowled length balls in the second innings, it wasn’t holding in the pitch. But, in the first innings, as you must have seen, the pick up and pull shots weren’t coming off and shot-making was really difficult,” he stated.
“We had a discussion over the fact that in the last game as well the wicket got better in the second innings. That’s why we wanted those extra 20-25 runs so that we could cover for the change in conditions and bowlers could get some margin. The toss became a very crucial factor and that’s why we were keen on scoring as many as we could,” he further revealed.
After having faced the losses to Pakistan and New Zealand, India will now play against Afghanistan on November 3.
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