After Indian pacers failed to impress at Old Trafford, Manchester, with England scoring 544 for 7 riding on a 150-run knock by Joe Root, Jasprit Bumrah has been criticised for his lack of success with the new ball during the ongoing Test series against England. India’s bowling coach Morne Morkel said Bumrah could not take wickets with the new ball because the bowlers from the other end failed to create pressure. Bumrah has picked up 13 wickets in the ongoing series at an average of 26.69, including a fifer in the first Test at Leeds. At Old Trafford, he managed to take the wicket of only Jamie Smith. England took a 186-run lead in the first innings at Day 3 stumps after their opening duo of Ben Duckett and Zak Crawley shared a 166-run partnership. Duckett scored 94, while Crawley was dismissed for 84.

Speaking about Bumrah's underperformance with the new ball this series, Morkel said, "I had a conversation with Bumrah last night. He is obviously a guy who is highly skilful and he wants to create things for us with the ball."

"But at the end of the day, we need support from the other end as well. And I think that is, you know, a big thing in this sort of bowling innings is that we are struggling to create. We are finding it hard to create pressure from both ends," he added.

Morkel said that for Bumrah to be more successful, bowlers need to support him, but the other bowlers’ tendency of going after wickets forced them to leak runs.

"And, you know, he sort of released that pressure. But, yeah, I cannot, you cannot say anything about Boom. He is number one in the world. He is skilful. And, you know, at times you are going to get in the wicket column. But I think also, you know, you need help from the other end," he added.

The bowling coach also admitted that the Test series without Mohammed Shami supporting Bumrah has become a "real test" for the youngsters. India named Prasidh Krishna, Anshul Kamboj, Nitish Kumar Reddy, and Akash Deep for England. While Akash Deep did well at Edgbaston, taking 10 wickets, he could not play the fourth Test due to injury.

"We play three, two-Test match series a lot and this is now the first time in a while we have gone into five. You know, it should not be an excuse but in terms of conditioning, getting the guys conditioned and get them ready for a five-Test series coming straight out of the IPL is sometimes an issue. Because you have to balance between Test matches, getting these guys a good amount of recovery time, but also to keep their bowling loads up," he continued.

"And that is why it is important for us to look at the future and get a good core of five, six bowlers that we can rotate and these guys can come in and they can do the job. At the moment there is not a lot of experience with the ball. We have got Siraj and Bumrah that played a lot of Tests and then Akash has played a little bit but he's out injured."

"So we keep on finding ways to bring new guys in that are learning now in international cricket, learning their trade in international cricket. So it is not easy at the moment but it is just a phase, a period that we need now to work through and get these guys fitter and stronger to last for five Test matches," he concluded.