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IND vs ENG 5th Test: India’s bowling coach Morne Morkel acknowledged that the team's approach of not fielding four frontline bowlers against England in the five-match Test series will be under the microscope.

The benching of ace spinner Kuldeep Yadav throughout the England Test series has sparked conversations with India persistently implying a three-pacer strategy in every match.

Throughout the series, India stuck with their combination centred around three frontline pacers, choosing from Akash Deep, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj, Prasidh Krishna and Shardul Thakur, with all-rounders Ravindra Jadeja and Washington Sundar handling the spin duty.

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India's bowling coach Morne Morkel shed light on the thought process behind the repeated selection calls.

“To be honest, that’s been part of our conversation before every match. Heading into the Tests, given the nature of the wickets and the overhead conditions in the early days, we felt going in with the extra batter was important,” Morkel said in the press conference after Day 4 of the fifth and final Test at The Oval.

“In the last couple of games, our fourth seamer didn’t bowl too many overs anyway, and with Washi and Jadeja both capable of bowling long spells, we leaned towards strengthening the batting. But yes, these are things we will reflect on at the end of the tour—the areas we could’ve handled differently.”

Morne Morkel: Get the ball in the right area

Bad light — and eventually rain — forced an early close of Day 4, pushing India vs England 5th Test for a thrilling last day with the hosts needing 35 runs to win and visitors four wickets.

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“You can’t really afford to throw in the towel on a very important Test match and for us it was key to break that partnership, get a new better in. We’ve seen it so many times before where if you get one, you can easily get one or two and just create a bit of pressure around that. So I it wasn’t (case of) hard words or no sort of big talk, it’s just for us to stay calm and really work hard to break that partnership and from there, just to get the ball in the right area,” Morkel said.