To rest own bowlers
With money comes greed. Professional Cricketers, especially in the Big 3 – India, Australia and England, are supposed to play incessantly throughout the year in various formats. The body can only take so much.
MS Dhoni has been vocal about poor scheduling and had once, accepting the notion that the associates should get high-quality matches, mentioned that “associates can play with other countries, not India”, citing the reason that IPL and Champions League are already crunching India’s schedule.
AB de Villiers too had concerns about the schedules and was rumoured to be on the verge of the test retirement. In such a dire scenario, test captains now a days, opt for a safer option of cutting down the bowlers’ workload as much and as necessary as possible.
In the hindsight, considering the fact that Anderson and Stokes, who injured himself again in Pakistan’s second innings, were coming back from injuries, Cook’s decision to not enforce the follow-on does not seem so irrational.
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