Jasprit Bumrah was not ready to divulge his playing eleven for the opening Test against Australia starting Friday but gave enough indications that the team management is heavily invested in young Nitish Kumar Reddy's all-round abilities, which can lend perfect balance to the Indian eleven.
As a captain what has impressed Bumrah is that the youngsters in the side are neither confused about their roles nor overawed by the sense of occasion of playing their first Test series Down Under.
Reddy, rookie speedster Harshit Rana, Devdutt Padikkal, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Prasidh Krishna and Dhruv Jurel are on their maiden Test tour to Australia.
“Reddy is quite talented and we are positive about him. You have seen in IPL also, he believes in his game,” Bumrah said at the pre-match media conference on Thursday.
Bumrah admired the fact that this generation of players are fearless and clear-headed in their approach.
“The best thing about youngsters in our team is that when you talk to them, no one looks confused, overawed,” he said.
“When you have belief in your abilities, you get a lot of confidence as a leader that a youngster wants to perform the tough job."
“He wants responsibility and wants to be thrown at the deep end of the pool as they want to prove themselves. Nothing could be more heartening for a captain.”
Virat Kohli's current form might be a matter of debate but Bumrah has no doubt that India's Numero Uno batter looks in fine nick and it could be an ominous sign for the opposition. But he wouldn't like to "jinx it".
“I don't have to say anything about Kohli the batter. I have made my (Test) debut under him. I don't need to give him any kind of special inputs and he is the utmost professional you have in our team and he is one of the leaders,” Bumrah was loud and clear.
Bumrah is on his third Test tour to Australia and the stand-in skipper keeps telling the youngsters that once a player performs Down Under, his career graph goes on an upward exponential curve.
For him, it doesn't matter if he is 100-Test old or 50-Test, it is the self-belief that makes all the difference.
“If you believe you are good enough, then you can make an impact. It doesn't matter if you have played 100 Tests or 50 Tests. What matters is what is going on inside you. If I believe I can do it, it can make a difference."
“On a given day, anyone can make a difference and doesn't matter who you are, because you gain experience by playing, nobody is born with experience and if that self-belief is there that's what matters.”
Bumrah believes that there are lessons to be learnt from 0-3 defeat against New Zealand but the team has moved on as they embark on a fresh journey fraught with challenges.
At the end, whether one wins or loses, the fresh start is still from zero.
“Obviously, we won the World Cup doesn't mean that we become complacent and obviously we were disappointed and we had a tough series last time but we are not carrying any baggage."
“We need to absorb the learnings (from NZ series) and move on. The conditions in India were different and conditions here are different and we have had very different results over here," he said.
One pro-tip Bumrah has for the youngsters is learning to cope up with the bad days in the same manner as they handle the good days.
“Our players know how to handle good and bad days. Like good days, you need to learn to cope up with bad days too if you need to play international cricket,” he added.
