After suffering their second consecutive defeat in the ongoing ICC T20 Men’s World Cup, Team India pacer Jasprit Bumrah has said that India is struggling from ‘bubble fatigue’ amid the COVID-19 pandemic and the players are feeling the effects of being on the road for six months.
On Sunday, India went down to New Zealand by eight wickets in Dubai and slipped to the fifth place in Group 2 of the Super 12 stage. What happened worse for the Men in Blue that even if the Virat Kohli-led side wins all of their remaining three matches, it won’t be enough to secure them a place in the semi-finals of the showpiece event.
Notably, the Indian players have been in bubble since a long time as after the World Test Championship (WTC) in June against New Zealand, they were in England for the five-match series and later travelled to the UAE to participate in the remainder of the 14th edition of the cash-rich Indian Premier League (IPL).
Commenting on it, Bumrah told reporters: “Absolutely, sometimes you need a break. You miss your family. You’ve been on the road for six months. So all of that sometimes play on the back of your mind. But when you are on the field, you don’t think of all those things…obviously staying in a bubble and staying away from your family for such a long period of time does play a role.”
“The BCCI also tried their best to make us feel comfortable … It’s a difficult time. There’s a pandemic going on, so we try to adapt but sometimes bubble fatigue, mental fatigue also creeps in,” he added.
Bumrah further expressed: “We tried to give us some cushion. We wanted to get extra runs that could give us an advantage in the second innings.”
Significantly, Team India were one of the pre-tournament favourites to lift the coveted trophy but now face an uphill task to make it to the semi-finals of the showpiece event.
On the other side, skipper Kohli admitted that his side wasn’t brave enough in any department of the game.
“I don’t think we were brave enough with bat or ball. We didn’t have much to defend but we weren’t brave when we walked out to field. When you play for the Indian cricket team you have a lot of expectations – not just from fans, but players as well,” Kohli said after the defeat against the Kiwis.
“So there’s always going to be more pressure with our games and we’ve embraced it over the years. Everyone who plays for India has to embrace it. And when you cope together as a team you overcome it and we haven’t done it these two games. Just because you’re the Indian team and there are expectations doesn’t mean you start playing differently. I think we’re fine, there’s a lot of cricket left to play,” he added.
The Men in Blue are slated to next face Afghanistan on Wednesday (November 3) at the Sheikh Zayed Stadium in Abu Dhabi.