Players get injured and we have to rotate them – Rohit Sharma on India’s pace unit for the West Indies series

As India take on West Indies in the first Test of the two-match series, they will be relying a lot on their fast bowling unit that would be spearheaded by RCB’s ace quick, Mohammed Siraj. Siraj will be accompanied by the likes of Jaydev Unadkat, Shardul Thakur, Navdeep Saini and Mukesh Kumar. 

One of India’s key facets of dominion away from home has been their pace mafia. Much to India’s woes, they will be without the services of Jasprit Bumrah, who is still tending to his stress fracture in the back while Mohammed Shami has been rested for the series.

Indian captain Rohit Sharma, in the press conference, highlighted that there is no point thinking about what could have been and what should have been and instead, he expects the team to deliver with the available resources at hand. 

Speaking in the pre-match presser, Rohit said, “We’ve seen that the pacers have taken a lot of wickets here. But it is what it is. Players get injured and we have to rotate them unfortunately. Humare paas fast bowlers ki line nahi lagi hui hai (We don’t have an abundance of pacers). In India, there are a lot of bowlers who are injured. The ones we have, we need to manage them. Which is why our experienced bowlers couldn’t come on this tour.”

Shedding some light about Unadkat and Mukesh Kumar, Rohit added, “Jaydev (Unadkat) isn’t new, he made his debut 10-12 years back. Mukesh Kumar has performed consistently in domestic cricket. He has done well for his state as well as in zonal games and for India A. We’ll see the combination we need to pick.”

He concluded by talking about player rotations across various forms of cricket, adding, “For Indian cricket, this will always be a challenge since we play a lot of cricket. We have to manage players, rotate them, give them enough breaks so that they are fresh. We also need to remember the big tournament that’s coming up. We need to keep everyone fresh for the World Cup. That’s also something we have to remember because right now we don’t have the luxury to focus on one particular series. It’s also beneficial since the new players are also getting an opportunity. We also need to create bench strength. It gives us an idea how those in the background who’ve been working hard handle the pressure at the international stage.”