Bubble fatigue matters, players need break: Bumrah

India’s pace bowling spearhead Jasprit Bumrah said that bubble fatigue is a tough reality of the current times, as he tried to explain the team’s poor campaign in the ongoing T20 World Cup here.

India lost to New Zealand by eight wickets on Sunday, and are in danger of crashing out of the T20 World Cup with three more group games left. The team is yet to win a match, having lost the opening match to Pakistan by 10 wickets.

Bumrah said that one ‘absolutely needs a break,’ when asked about the short gap between the second leg of the IPL and the T20 World Cup, in the post-match conference.

“But this is the reality of the times we are living in, it’s difficult, it is a pandemic and we are staying in bubbles. We try to adapt but bubble fatigue and mental fatigue also creeps in…You are doing the same thing again and again. It is the way it is, and you can’t control a lot of things over here,” Bumrah said.

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The Indian team had a six-day break between its first match against Pakistan and Sunday’s engagement against New Zealand. Skipper Kohli, after calling it helpful to cope with fatigue and niggles, described it as “ridiculous” during the toss last night.

“Sometimes you miss your family after being on the road for six months. All of that sometimes plays on the back of your mind. But when you are on the field, you don’t think about all of those things,” Bumrah said, adding that one cannot control the scheduling of the tournaments.

Bumrah said that staying in a bubble does affect the players’ minds, but the BCCI has “tried its best to make us comfortable.”

India have been in bio-bubbles since June, when they landed in England to play the World Test Championship final. The team got a three-week break after that game against the Black Caps, which was followed by a gruelling five-Test series against England.

Reflecting on Sunday’s match, Bumrah said that the batters tried to play “an attacking game” in a bid to give extra 30 runs to the bowlers on a dew-laden surface, as that was the communication from the team management.

Interestingly, Bumrah’s take on playing an “attacking game” came minutes after Kohli’s bold admission at the post-match presentation that neither his men had shown proper “body language” nor were they “brave” in their approach.

The difference in statements between the skipper and his premier pacer showed that “communication” indeed has been a problem.

“Batters wanted to give a cushion of 20 to 30 extra runs and in that process, they played a lot of attacking shots, which didn’t come off today. In the second innings, batting does get easier so they wanted to give that cushion to the bowlers and, in that thought process, played lot of attacking shots,” Bumrah said.

The pacer said that communication was clear as to what the situation of the game was.

“Scoring 25 to 30 runs (on two-paced wicket) was not very easy but that was the extra responsibility that you had to take. It’s difficult and that’s why everyone playing the evening game is choosing to bowl first.

“There’s massive difference and our batters knew they had to give us cushion. They tried their best and it didn’t come off today,” Bumrah said.

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Bumrah said that one of the primary reasons for India’s failure was that the team batting first found that the ball was holding up and three batters, namely, KL Rahul, Rohit Sharma and Ishan Kishan, who tried the pick-up pull shot, couldn’t execute it, which wasn’t the problem in the second innings.

“In the second innings, the length ball was not holding up. In the first innings, the ball was holding and so pick-up pulls weren’t coming off. So shot-making was difficult. Those options changed in the second innings,” Bumrah said.

“Some days would be good and some days bad. Don’t get too high on good days and neither too low on bad days. All of these things are part and parcel, stay in moment and analyse what went well and move forward,” Bumrah said.

(With inputs from Agencies)