Amit Mishra is pleased that Anil Kumble is their head coach
Jul 28, 2016 at 3:23 PM
Indian leg-spinner Amit Mishra is pleased that Anil Kumble is their head coach and a champion spinner.
Speaking to the media person in Jamaica on Wednesday, Mishra said, Kumble’s advice will help him to better his art.
“I am very lucky that Kumble is with the coaching team now. He is a legendary bowler and when I was making my debut, he had retired. So I could only talk to him intermittently. Now that he is with the team, we are able to talk a lot more,” Mishra said.
“He keeps telling me the different aspects of batting and bowling, how to bowl to tailenders and while batting in the lower order, how to bring about more confidence in your own batting. So all the experience he has helps in the little things… Like if wickets are slow, vary your pace and all,” he added.
Burly Mishra also credited his teammates for the big win in the first Test against West Indies in Antigua.
“We are totally motivated by the win and it’s a great feeling how we won the first Test. It was a collective effort and we did well in batting, bowling, fielding and holding catches… It was a collective and an all-round effort. But I feel that we can forget that now and are now totally concentrating on the Jamaica match. For us the effort will be to move on from the win and yet continue doing well in the coming matches,” Mishra said.
Talking about Indian bowlers approach in the first Test, Mishra said, “When you attack, you try to be aggressive and the mentality changes… We are trying to take wickets and we talk about that more. Whatever the possibility is, we do that.”
Stressing on the importance of bowling to tailenders, he said, “Sometimes you can get the main batsmen out, but the tail can wag longer and play longer. So it becomes tough to get them out because you are concentrating on the main batsmen, and the last three-four wickets keep on playing. So we discussed that we will look to bowl wicket taking deliveries at them so that runs are also tough to come by.
“The best thing was that we were able to do it and get those wickets whenever the partnerships started forming in the lower order (in the first Test). Similarly while batting, we did well in the lower order… Batting with Ashwin we added 100-plus runs and so we could get 550-plus.”
Mishra has taken three wickets in the first Test which was dominated by the Indian pacers Mohammad Shami and Umesh Yadav in the first innings and in the second innings Ravichandran Ashwin has taken seven wickets.