London: On a pitch that offered no support to pace bowlers, it was important to create pressure on England batsmen and force them to make mistakes, said India pace bowler Jasprit Bumrah, who approached Kohli for the job on Monday, the fifth day of the fourth Test.
“It is very important to create pressure. We thought it was an important phase. So I went up to him and told him that we should start creating pressure. So that was the intention behind it,” Bumrah explained the reason behind him approaching the skipper and asking to give him the ball just after lunch as England were coasting along.
“The mindset after the lunch break was that we needed to create a lot of pressure. We needed to start really well. Suddenly, [if] you give a lot of runs, then the momentum goes away and you come under pressure. Then you don’t want to play catch-up. So I was of the mindset, [that] if we start to create pressure, any result is possible. So we had a lot a belief. The wicket was on the flatter side. It requires a lot of patience, lot of control. We wanted to exhibit that,” said Bumrah in the post-match media interaction.
Bumrah picked the wickets of Ollie Pope and Jonny Bairstow in successive overs through reverse swing to peg England back.
“In international cricket, nothing is easy. Even if it’s a very good wicket, you have to bowl in the right areas and that is the message you want to communicate whenever you are bowling. So we had decided that even if the wicket was on flatter side, our job was to create pressure and maintain the discipline that people are talking about for the longest period of time. So we were trying to do that. We wanted to create pressure,” added Bumrah.
“So very happy to get this result and a lot of effort went into this win. All the bowlers contributed with the bat and the ball. So very, very happy with all of them. And yeah, really happy. Hopefully, we will carry on the momentum in the next match as well,” he added.
