MANCHESTER: After a long day in the field and a frustrating draw against India at the Old Trafford Ground on Sunday, England skipper Ben Stokes said they might have to get some fresh legs for the fifth and last Test starting at the Oval on July 31.
Answering a question on the bowlers' workload, he said, "I think you look at how long we've been out on the field and the overs that we've bowled as a bowling unit. Everyone's going to be pretty sore and pretty tired going into the last game of the series."
Adding further he said, "I think it'll be an assessment of everyone and hopefully we can use these next two to three days of rest period wisely and then have to make a decision on that. These recovery days are going to be pretty important. We might have to make a few decisions to get some fresh legs in but again, that won't be decided until we get closer to the last game."
Stokes' reply sums up the worrying situation England bowlers are facing after four closely-contested Test matches against India spread over 38 days. They are a tired lot and may have to bring in new faces if those in the playing XI in the last four Tests did not recover in time. It is also why England have went on to add Jamie Overton to the squad for the final Test.
The gravity of the situation can be understood by the fact that the English bowlers have bowled more than 894 overs in eight innings which means they have bowled around 111 overs per innings. Their Indian counterparts, meanwhile, have thrown in around 672 overs - 96 overs per innings - in seven essays. There is clearly a difference of more than 15 overs between the overs bowled by England and Indian pacers on an average in an innings.
Besides, three England pacers - Chris Woakes, Ben Stokes and Brydon Carse - have played all the four matches bowling 167, 140 and 155 overs each. Jofra Archer, who started the series in Lord's, has bowled 88.3 overs in just two matches while Liam Dawson, making his comeback to the Test side after eight-year hiatus, has bowled 62 overs in only one match.
For India, only Mohammed Siraj has featured in all four matches bowling 139 overs. Jasprit Bumrah played three games bowling 119.4 overs. Akash Deep and Prasidh Krishna played two matches each bowling 72.1 and 62 overs respectively.
Apart from this, India have scored more than 350 runs in seven of the eight innings - the most for any team in a Test series. The previous best was six by Australia, who have done it three times in the Ashes in 1920-21, 1948, and 1989. As England score quickly given their Bazball approach, they consume lesser overs in comparison to their opponents. It means their rival teams have to bowl lesser overs. It's been a kind of blessing in disguise for the Indian team.
Besides, India all-rounders like Shardul Thakur and Nitish Kumar Reddy's workloads as bowlers have been quite low in comparison to their counterparts in England team - Stokes, Carse and Archer. With head coach Gautam Gambhir saying all pacers are fit and available for selection for the last match, it signals return of a fresh and rejuvenated Akash Deep to the playing XI. But it will be completely different for England when they take the field for the fifth Test as they are expected to be without services of a few of their trusted bowlers, who had bowled their hearts out in the previous four outings. "I'm not going to hide away from the fact that it's been a very tough four games so far for the guys who have played in particular bowling units. We generally like to get our team out a couple of days before but we might have to just take a little bit longer going into this last game just because of how we want to give everyone as long as they possibly can to be able to recover," Stokes said.
As their captain said, ahead of the Oval match it's going to be long recovery period for England bowlers given the amount of work they have done in the Test matches so far