England captain Ben Stokes on Tuesday dismissed the chatter surrounding Jasprit Bumrah's availability for only three Tests out of five as "India's problem" and said he is expecting the "passionate" visitors to fight hard in the second Test irrespective of the team composition.
Bumrah was by far the best Indian bowler on show at Leeds, where the Shubman Gill-led side lost from a position of strength. The likes of Prasidh Krishna, Mohammed Siraj and Shardul Thakur were not consistent enough with their lengths to test the England batters.
India have not decided which three Tests Bumrah will be a part of over the course of the English summer. He has played one, leaving him to feature in two out of the next four games.
However, Stokes and Co are not bothered about Bumrah's availability and are focusing on extending their series lead.
"That's India's problem. They will deal with it. I am captain of England," that is how Stokes handled the query on Bumrah.
Having said that, Stokes gave due respect to the opposition.
"Good team. They always fight hard, come hard. Very passionate team," he said when asked about the trailing Indian team.
"It's pretty clear that there's always pressure on shoulders of international sportsmen, but playing for India, especially in cricket, there's probably a bit more on any other nation. So, yeah, a very proud nation. Don't take anything for granted from last week. We start at 0-0 again." England had chased down 371 on day five at Leeds to complete their second highest successful chase in Test cricket. The highest chase, 378, too came against India here at Edgbaston three years ago.
Fan of Rishabh Pant in all formats ====================== Stokes and Pant had a moment at Headingley as the latter charged down the ground against the England captain early in his innings. Stokes reacted to Pant's ploy with a hearty laugh.
What was all that about? "Even though he's in opposition, I absolutely love watching Rishabh play cricket. I love the way he takes it on in all formats of the game. He's got a bit of stickiness in his time, but that type of talent, when you let that type of talent be free, that's what can happen in the last week," said Stokes.
Pant became the first Indian wicket-keeper batter to smash two hundreds in a Test match, drawing praise from the world cricket fraternity.
"Credit to him, two 100s in the game. We know we're going to get our chances with the way that Rishabh plays. So, yeah, it's one of them. On a different day, it could have looked a little bit different. But, yeah, a very dangerous player," said Stokes Pleased with his bowling rhythm ====================== The 34-year-old Stokes was the best England pacer on show at Leeds despite not playing a lot of cricket in the past six months due to injury. He looks fitter than ever and that reflected his probing spells in the series opener.
How is the ageing body holding up? "I feel better now than I did on Thursday and Friday (laughs). Everyone was very tired in that week. It was a big week, we were on the field and bowled for another five days, so yeah, big week for everyone. I used the three days after that game to offer absolutely nothing to the world.
"I was a shadow of myself, but it goes to show how much a five-day Test match takes out of you. I was pretty tired, but I'm all over that now and ready to go tomorrow." Asked if he is back to his best, he added: "I did everything possible to not worry about anything outside of what we normally worry about. But coming out of that game, feeling good in all of my spells, rhythm-wise, being able to back up spells throughout the day.
"But I managed to maintain my pace, which was one of the things I wanted to concentrate on."
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