Fast bowlers have always been a great asset for a team and India currently enjoys many. For the first time in as many years, the Indian team has a great bowling unit. Maybe, the best in the world right now. With the likes of Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Jasprit Bumrah, Umesh yadav and Mohammed Shami doing wonders for the team. The Indian coaching staff has been in a dilemma over the selection from the current crop of bowlers. Hardik Pandya’s all-round talent has added headache.
India’s current bowling coach Bharat Arun is satisfied with quality of bowlers the Indian team has right now. But he also added that a good left-arm fast bowling option would add strength to the bowling department. He said:
“Wrist spinners are there… We have Kuldeep (Yadav) and (Yuzvendra) Chahal and a pretty healthy wrist-spin options. Yes we are looking at left-arm fast bowling. If we can get even one good left-arm fast bowler it will go well for the side.”
Arun feels that the Indian team is blessed to have such versatile bowlers.
“We are blessed to have a bowling attack that’s so versatile and each one’s wants are so different from the other. So, it’s about what the bowler wants to work on and my job is to give them the feedback; the right feedback that helps them to evolve as bowlers.”
The only part to worry about is the discipline of the bowlers. In the first ODI Indian bowlers bowled 10 wides. Apart from Axar Patel every other bowler bowled at least one wide. He said:
“We bowled about 10 wides in that first game,” he noted. “There was a very strong breeze but that’s no excuse. We need to constantly look at improving and that’s one of the areas. We need to assess the conditions early and adapt ourselves to those conditions and looking at that, it is a lesson for us to learn.”
Arun was impressed with Hardik Pandya but believes he is still a work in progress.
“If you look at Hardik, he works up very good speeds and bowls 135 plus consistently and we need to have our options open throughout. So we like to try out different bowlers at different points of time.”
More than me I think Hardik wants to bowl those 10 overs and he does understand that to bowl those 10 overs he needs to work more on his skills and become more skilful and he is someone who works really hard. He is not afraid of trying different things. So my job is a lot easier to be working with somebody like Hardik who wants to upgrade his skills,” he added.
This statement from Bharat Arun has opened up the gates for the discarded Indian cricketers like, Irfan Pathan and Ashish Nehra for one last stint for the 2019 World Cup.