In the face of a torrent of criticism for making three changes to the playing XI for the second Test match against England in Birmingham, including resting Jasprit Bumrah and once more overlooking Kuldeep Yadav, India head coach Gautam Gambhir was eventually backed by his former teammate Irfan Pathan.

Sunil Gavaskar was perplexed by the decision to leave Kuldeep out of the starting XI and instead choose Washington Sundar, another spin-bowling all-rounder, to bolster the lower-order batting. Sundar's inclusion was justified as a way to improve the lower-order batting, which was largely to blame for India's five-wicket defeat in the series opener in Leeds, but he questioned the reasoning.

"Washington at seven or Nitish Reddy at eight won't necessarily fix that if your top-order batters are not giving you the runs you expect, because those weren't the batters who failed you in the first Test. You made 830 runs. It was over 830, not 380, in two innings. On Sony Sports Network, he said, "That's a lot of runs." "Therefore, you needed more improvement in the wicket-taking area than in the batting."

But Pathan was not convinced by this story. The inclusion of Sundar was motivated by a "negative" response, which he attacked instead. He supported the all-rounder's selection by endorsing him to defend it with bat and ball at Edgbaston.

“I don’t buy the story that it's a bad decision to play Washington Sundar. In fact, it's an effort to address a long-standing gap: lower-order resistance. Also, let's keep in mind that he will also help with the ball. He tweeted, "Specifically versus English hitters."

To a large extent, the two additional alterations India made to the XI were to make up for the absence of Bumrah, who was given a break to reduce his workload. As Akash Deep took the place of the 31-year-old, Sai Sudharsan, who debuted in Leeds, paid the price by being benched to make room for Nitish Kumar Reddy, a pace-bowling all-rounder.

Having lost in Leeds, India is currently down 0-1 in its series against England.

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