India bowling coach Paras Mhambrey has stated that the bowlers' workload will have to be managed in the upcoming tours. India are scheduled to play a total of seven Test matches - 2 against South Africa away and 5 against England at home - till March 2024 and the same set of bowlers - Mohammed Siraj, Mohammed Shami and Jasprit Bumrah - who played in the World Cup will be in action in red-ball format.
But the trio has played a lot of cricket since Asia Cup sending down a lot of overs game after game till the World Cup ended on Sunday (November 19). While Shami sent down 48.5 overs in World Cup to pick 24 wickets, Siraj bowled 82.3 overs for his 14 wickets and Bumrah bowled the most, 91.5 overs in the mega event. While these three bowlers will definitely be part of the playing XI for South Africa Tests, one of them might get some rest in England Tests with the pitches mostly helping spinners.
Also, there will be questions over Bumrah's fitness as to how he will cope when it comes to bowling in Tests as longer spells will be expected of him. "We will have to be very smart with the way we go forward in terms of managing the workload. These guys have played a lot of cricket, so we need to see how we want to go about it. We haven’t discussed it yet. We missed Bumrah for a major part, and you see the difference he brings when he is in the side. The way he has gone in this tournament especially, it's massive," Mhambrey said according to PTI.
Mhambrey was also impressed with Shami's incredible wicket-taking spree as he accounted for 24 wickets in just seven games. "He (Shami) was incredible. He obviously hadn’t played the initial games, but the way he came back and bowled throughout the tournament was incredible. That’s not something we expected, but we always knew that he always has that positive impact on the game. He has been phenomenal," he added.
