As of now, most of the Indian fans and the Australian too will rate the premier pacer of the Blue Brigade, Jasprit Bumrah, to be the fiercest among all of the fast bowlers when the Rohit Sharma-led side make their trip to Australia for the five-match Test series in the Border Gavaskar Trophy 2024-25. But, Paras Mhambrey, the former Indian bowling coach, has made a different choice.
The veteran wants a pacer who is tall and has a knack for bowling with a plan. In those bouncy and expressive tracks of Australia a bowler who has the knack of short-length type of deliveries targeting the batters’ head, can prove to be quite successful in the role.
Paras Mhambrey has come up with a different name who according to him could prove to be successful with the ball in hand. The Indian team will be playing five Tests at home against Bangladesh and New Zealand jointly before they fly to Australia for the BGT 2024-25.
They are expected to be qualified for the final of the World Test Championship (WTC) 2023-25, whose final will be on June 11, upon which they will start their five-match series in England just three days later.
Paras Mhambrey picks this Karnataka pacer for BGT 2024-25
In a recent interaction with Cricbuzz, the former Indian bowler, Paras Mhambrey, felt that the lanky pacer of Karnataka, Prasidh Krishna could prove to be a great weapon for the Rohit Sharma-led side during the five-match Test series.
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Krishna, who made his red-ball debut for the Indian team during their last away series in South Africa in 2023-24, has been out of action since that point in time with injury. He has started bowling after a four-month gap which ruled him out of the last Indian Premier League (IPL) in 2024, but the National Cricket Academy (NCA) members have advised to be cautious with the 28-year-old.
“Obviously in Australia, the Kookaburra is different and you need to make use of the 30-35 overs with the newish ball because that’s when you can look to pick wickets. You are going to want to look at who can give you those wickets, what are skillsets that you feel are going to be important.” The former Mumbai pacer stated.
Injury has been one of the reasons, why the Bengaluru-boy hasn’t been a consistent member of red-ball games. Since making his debut in 2015, he has featured in only 15 first-class games picking up 58 wickets at an average of under 20 and a strike rate of nearly six overs, with three five-wicket and three ten-wicket hauls.
Paras Mhambrey addressed that when the ball would get old after 30 to 35 overs in a day, the Karnataka pacer could come and bang the ball into the surface and get the bounce which could trouble the Australian batters.
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“Having that bounce is going to be important, and that is why I want to see how someone like Prasidh shapes up. And I want him to have a great Duleep Trophy then straightaway you have a third seamer who is different from the others.” Paras Mhambrey explained during the interaction. “Because later on after the 30-35 overs, it does get flat and you need to have someone to have something different and the bounce is something you can use.”
Prasidh didn’t enjoy a great time during the first two Tests in the Rainbow Nation, having collected only a couple of wickets in the 28 overs he bowled which went for an economy rate of 4.64.