IND vs NZ | Teams might implement New Zealand's conservative approach against Bumrah, feels Shane Bond

Jasprit Bumrah has become one of India’s first picks in Test Cricket in recent times but his inability to pick up wickets in the ODI series has become a worrying point for Team India. For the very time in his short Test career, the pacer will take the field with some degree of uncertainty, low on confidence. But the skiddy pacer has taken 62 wickets in total in matches played in South Africa, England, Australia and the West Indies.

Recently, the 26-year-old copped a lot of criticism for his lean run during the three ODIs against the Blackcaps. But Former Kiwi pacer Shane Bond reckons that Kiwi batters' conservative approach against Bumrah could become a template for other teams to follow as they tackled the Indian pace ace who recently endured a rare wicket-less outing in the ODI series.

"That's the nature of expectations when you got a bowler of Jasprit's quality, I thought New Zealand played him well and identified him as a risk," Bond was quoted as saying by News18.

"They have played him conservatively and obviously there was some inexperience around (Navdeep Saini and Shardul Thakur). All teams will now identify him as a risk and attack others. So that's where the bowling group and what they do (as a group) is massive. It is not an easy place to bowl as wickets are flat."

The former Blackcap felt Bumrah wasn’t bowling badly during the series which India lost 0-3 and attested that the pacer can only try, adding that the Indian speedster bowled reasonably well, only somehow failing to pick wickets. The duo have spent a considerable amount of time together in the IPL, with Shane Bond being the bowling coach of Mumbai Indians.

"When you come back from a lay-off, it's always hard to get into the groove. Just that he hadn't had a lot of game before the series and conditions are a bit foreign. Although New Zealand played him well in limited-overs, Jasprit will have a massive impact on the Test series. I have no doubt about that," said Bond.

"It always takes time to get back to top form because there is no substitute of game time. So it's good for Jasprit that he is leading into Test matches with some short-form cricket," he added.