Jasprit Bumrah was India’s best bowler in the first Test against England, which was played from June 20 to 24 in Leeds and in which India suffered a defeat by five wickets despite posting a target of 371 runs. The star fast bowler, who tops the ICC Test bowler’s ranking, is expected to miss the second Test of the ongoing five-match series as part of workload management. Bumrah suffered a back injury during the India-Australia Test series earlier this year, and it kept him out of action for more than three months. He made a successful comeback to competitive cricket via IPL in April 2025 but was advised to manage his workload as well, and as a result, it was revealed by the Indian team management (chief selector, head coach, and captain) that he will only play three Tests in England. There is still no clarity on which two Tests Bumrah will miss, but after India suffered a humiliating defeat in the series opener and other bowlers produced an ordinary show with the ball, many former greats and experts of the game want Bumrah to play in the second Test as well. Amid suspense over Bumrah’s participation in the red-ball match at Edgbaston from July 2 to 6, an old video of India head coach Gautam Gambhir is going viral on the internet in which he can be heard saying that he is not a believer in workload management. “I’m a very strong believer in one thing—that if you’re good, you should be playing all three formats. I’ve never been a big believer in injury management. If you get injured, you go get recovered, as simple as it gets. When you’re playing international cricket and you’re good enough, you ask any of the top players—they want to play all three formats. They don’t want to say, and they don’t want to be labelled as red-ball bowlers or white-ball bowlers. Injuries are part of a sportsman’s life, and if you’re playing all three formats, you get injured, and you go back and get recovered, but you should be playing all three formats,” Gautam said. Bro you were against itpic.twitter.com/bQOPUZOcQd https://t.co/3suUgClW1s — N (@Arsenik_Lahk) June 26, 2025 “I am not a big believer in identifying people and saying, ‘Okay, we’re going to keep him for Test matches. We’re going to keep him; we’re going to manage his injury and workload and stuff.’ Look, as professional cricketers, you’ve got a very small span when you’re playing for your country. And you want to play as much as you can, and when you’re in very good form, Go ahead and play all the formats,” he added.