Bharat Arun, the bowling coach of the Indian national cricket team, still feels disheartened for their defeat in the semi-final of the ICC Cricket World Cup 2019. However, he is now ready to provide the best preparation to his team that can help to win the forthcoming T20 World Cup.
Team India was one of the favourite teams to win the ICC Cricket World Cup 2019 in England. They also performed very well in that tournament but lost the semi-final of that tournament against New Zealand. Chasing down the 240 runs target on the reserve-day of that semi-final, India lost their first four wickets in just 24 runs. Though MS Dhoni (50) and Ravindra Jadeja (77) fought incredibly and brought back the team into the game, India just failed to win that match as they were bowled out for 221 runs (49.3 overs).
According to the FTP schedule, Australia will host the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2020 between 18th October and 15th November 2020. Though the fate of this tournament is doubtful due to the coronavirus pandemic, Bharat Arun is ready to provide the best preparation to his boys for this forthcoming tournament. While the semi-final defeat in the ICC Cricket World Cup 2019 still hurts him, Arun is desperate to see India’s victory in the upcoming T20 World Cup.
Arun told FanCode’s ‘Lockdown But Not Out’ series, “The World Cup loss still hurts us. It’s still hurting us and we’ll probably go all out to see that we leave no stone unturned in our preparation to make sure that we do exceptionally well in the World Cup. To win a World Cup, I think we need to really plan well and how far we execute our plan.”
It’d take us at least 6-8 weeks for us to play international matches: Indian bowling coach Bharat Arun
While the Indian government is trying to move on from the lockdown process, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) is now thinking to resume the game safely. Bharat Arun believes that the players require at least six to eight weeks to get ready for the international matches.
He claimed, “It’d take us at least 6-8 weeks for us to play international matches, whereby we’d be first working on the skill, and fitness in the camps and then we’ll progress onto match simulations, and hopefully the BCCI can organize a tournament just before we play the international matches, that would be great for us.”
The Indian bowling coach also believes that this off-period has helped the bowlers to work on their strength and fitness.
He added, “I’m not worried about the bowlers because they’ve had ample time in the last 2 months, to work on strength and their fitness. Very rarely does an international cricketer, especially our bowlers, would get this kind of time to work on their fitness. Also, it is a wonderful opportunity for them to get over the little niggles, that they may have got over the long season.”
India last time played an international match in early March during the New Zealand tour. Their next three-match home ODI series against South Africa was postponed after the first game of that series, which was abandoned due to the rain.