'Please play all five Tests': Gavaskar, Pujara send heartfelt request to Bumrah through his wife Sanjana Ganesan

In a light-hearted moment during the first Test match between India and England at Headingley, Cheteshwar Pujara and Sunil Gavaskar made a public appeal to Jasprit Bumrah, asking him to play all five Test matches in the ongoing series.

The conversation began with Pujara jokingly asking Bumrah’s wife Sanjana Ganesan to try and convince him to play more games in the series. Gavaskar pitched in with his own reasoning for Ganesan to convince Bumrah ahead of Day 4 of the game.

Cheteshwar Pujara: And I have a request for you tomorrow. You will have to convince Jasprit (Bumrah) to play a few more games. Just try it.

Sunil Gavaskar: See, tell him look there’s an eight-day gap after the first Test. So, the next test is not a problem and then after that, of course Lord’s. He can’t miss Lord’s and then so then after that again, there’s an eight-day gap. Then comes Manchester, Manchester the ball will do all kinds of things whether it’s April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, the ball will swing in Manchester. So Manchester, he has to play. And then at the Oval, you know, it’s just five days, last Test. So, all five test matches.

Sanjana Ganesan, who is also a broadcaster on duty, was quick to join the fun. She smiled and said, “Jasprit, if you’re watching this. Please play all five.”

Bumrah responds to Gavaskar-Pujara request

Later on, when Sanjana met Bumrah during a short segment for live TV, she passed on the message saying, “There’s a request from upstairs from Sunil Gavaskar and Cheteshwar Pujara. Don’t shoot the messenger… but they said, ‘Jasprit please play all five, please, please, please.’”

Bumrah, who picked up a five-wicket haul in the first innings of the match, replied, “That is a conversation we’ll have on another day.”

Bumrah is supposed to play just three Test matches in the series against England due to workload management. The Indian pacer later revealed that this is why he refused to take up the captaincy role after the retirement of Shubman Gill.