The question remains: will India rest one of their quick men in the fourth Test to manage workloads?
In a media release on Wednesday, the BCCI said Prasidh had been added to the squad for the penultimate Test of the five-match series at the request of the team management. It is understood that Prasidh, who was originally part of the reserves, was sought as cover to the main group of fast bowlers comprising Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Shami, Ishant Sharma and Mohammed Siraj. The other two pace options in the squad include Umesh Yadav and Shardul Thakur.
At 6′ 2″, Prasidh, who plays for Karnataka in domestic cricket, could potentially be seen as a back-up for Ishant, who struggled for rhythm and consistency while finishing wicketless in the third Test. Ishant, who turns 33 on Thursday, had sat out the first Test due a niggle.
“That’s bound to happen,” Kohli said when asked whether some of the fast bowlers could be rested. “It’s a very logical and sensible thing to do – you obviously don’t want to push individuals to a place where they break. We will have that conversation with individuals and see who is placed where physically and who needs to have a game off. You obviously can’t expect with a short turnaround like this for guys to play four Test matches in a row so we’ll have to assess who are the guys that will be given that many number of days to recover and then be okay for the fifth one [Manchester].”
All the Indian fast bowlers, including Prasidh, did not bowl at training on Tuesday, with the team management opting to rest the pace-bowling group two days ahead of the fourth Test.
Nagraj Gollapudi is news editor at ESPNcricinfo