Jasprit Bumrah is only human and cannot always shoulder the responsibility of bowling opposition out all by himself, skipper Rohit Sharma said on Sunday, urging others to share the load with the premier fast bowler.

India lost to Australia by 10 wickets in the second Test and during the home team’s first innings, only Bumrah stood out with a four-wicket haul.

 “We are not just playing with one bowler. There are other bowlers also who will have to take responsibility and get the job done for the team, be it (Mohammed) Siraj, Harshit Rana, Nitish Reddy, Akash Deep or Prasidh (Krishna),” skipper Rohit had a loud and clear message for his bowling unit.

The captain understands that there is a bit of inexperience in the line-up and they will grow in confidence with time.

“These bowlers have just arrived in Test cricket, it’s important to give them confidence. Whenever they play a match, it’s important to give them confidence. We keep planning and discussing. But you can’t expect Bumrah to bowl from both the ends and from morning to evening,” Rohit said.

“It’s very important to manage (all) bowlers. We discuss all this with each other. We talk to the bowler and then we make the decisions.”

Rohit said that he takes workload management of bowlers very seriously.

“I speak with him (Bumrah) whenever he finishes a spell. I enquire about how his body is feeling, is he (feeling) fresh or not? It’s a five-match series, we want Bumrah to play all the matches and remain fresh,” Rohit knows what his lethal weapon means in the larger context of the series.

Backing for young Harshit Rana

Young Harshit Rana was clobbered for 86 in just 16 overs but the skipper was against making a two-Test youngster the fall guy for a comprehensive defeat in Adelaide.

“Rana didn’t do anything wrong in the first Test. He did very well. He gave the team crucial breakthroughs when they were needed. I believe that if someone hasn’t done anything wrong, he cannot be left out without a reason because then what confidence does the team get?

“It happens, sometimes the team doesn’t get what it wants. He came up against a good batsman who put pressure on him. But he has a heart and a passion so we should back such (qualities in a player),” Rohit said.

“The player might think that you give me one match but leave me out in the next. This is not good for any player or any team, that’s what I think. We should assess what the situation is and how helpful the conditions are,” he elaborated.

While he doesn’t want to judge Rana on the basis of one game but if change is warranted it would be done for benefit of the team.

“But judging someone after one match is not the right thing. We always keep (all) options open for any player to play since we have to win a Test match. If we must make such changes to win a Test, we will do that.”

Rohit doesn’t want to read too much into Siraj-Head incident

The Indian skipper feels that one doesn’t need to read too much into the verbal altercation between Travis Head and pacer Siraj after the latter gave the left-hander angry send-off after a brilliant century.

While Head insisted that he acknowledged Siraj, saying “well bowled” after his dismissal, the Indian pacer countered by alleging that the Aussie batter was lying.

“There is a thin line between getting aggressive and over-aggressive. It is my job as captain to see that no one crosses the line. But a few words can be exchanged. Siraj knows what he needs to do for the team and he will do everything required,” Rohit defended his teammate.

Probed further by the Australian media, Rohit said: “When India and Australia play, these things happen. My job is not to look at one incident but at bigger picture.”

We didn’t bat well enough, skipper admits

Not even being able to score 200 across both innings is certainly disappointing, and the skipper made no bones about it.

“When you come to Australia, I feel the best chance of winning a Test match is by putting runs on the board. We knew that there would be challenges with that ball.

“But in the past, we’ve done that many times where the conditions have been a little challenging, and we’ve batted really well to put runs on the board, and then try and put pressure on the opposition,” Rohit said.

“Like I said, that is the disappointing part, that we didn’t bat well enough. We probably were 30-40 runs short with the bat in the first innings.”