India captain Jasprit Bumrah expressed disappointment with being unable to bowl in the second innings at the Sydney Cricket Ground as Australia went on to clinch the Border-Gavaskar Trophy after a 10-year gap.
Despite the absence in the last innings of the series, Bumrah finished with 32 wickets and bagged the Player of the Series honours.
Bumrah was off the field on Day 2 for nearly three hours as he was taken to the hospital for scans. It was later revealed to be back spasm. While the seamer came in to bat and fell for a duck, he was unable to add to his stupendous numbers in the five-match series.
“Little frustrating but sometimes you have to respect your body, you can’t fight your body. Disappointing, probably missed out on the spiciest wicket of the series. Felt a bit of discomfort during my second spell in the first innings,” he said after India lost the match and series.
Bumrah stressed that even though the series scoreline reads 3-1, it had been “well fought” and there were plenty of learnings, especially for the young bunch.
“Lots of ifs and buts, the whole series was fought hard, we were in the game today as well, not like we were out of it, this is how Test cricket goes,” said the India skipper in the absence of dropped Rohit Sharma.
“Being in the game for longer, creating pressure, absorbing pressure and playing to the situation are all important. You have to adapt to the situations and these learnings will help us in the future.
“They’ve (youngsters) gained a lot of experience, they’ll go from strength to strength. We’ve shown that we have a lot of talent in our group. Lot of the youngsters are keen, they’re disappointed that we haven’t won but they’ll take learnings from this experience,” he said on the learnings.
Coming into the day, India were 145 runs ahead and had four wickets in hand. The visitors could only add 16 to that and with Bumrah short, had a herculean task.
Australia eventually chased down the 162-run target with ease with Travis Head and Beau Webster remaining unbeaten.
“The chat was about belief, the other bowlers stepped up in the first innings. With a bowler short, the others had to take responsibility. The chat this morning was about the same thing, about having belief and showing character,” said Bumrah on the conversation in the morning.
