Without mincing his words, Gautam Gambhir has explained what Arshdeep Singh needs to do to put up a better performance with the ball. The left-arm pacer has struggled with the ball especially no-balls in recent times.
During the second T20I against Sri Lanka earlier this month, he had bowled as many as five front foot no-balls which is the most for any bowler in a T20Is. Arshdeep Singh has been facing this problem for quite some time now.
Even in the ongoing series against New Zealand, he had to pay a big price in the first T20I. Asked to bowl the final over in the series-opener, he began by bowling a front foot no-ball which was hammered for a six by Daryl Mitchell.
He just could not recover from the poor start ad ended up conceding 27 runs as New Zealand managed to post a match-winning total of 176/6 in 20 overs at Ranchi. It eventually cost India the game as they lost the match by 21 runs.
Gautam Gambhir on Arshdeep Singh’s struggles:
Talking about Arshdeep Singh’s recent struggles with the no-ball, Gautam Gambhir has said that he cannot afford to bowl the no-balls. Gautam Gambhir also said that bowling no-balls in international cricket is unacceptable while pointing that it could hurt the team big time.
“I think. these numbers are fine, It can go south and it can go north. But the most important thing is you can’t afford to bowl those no-balls. That is absolutely unacceptable, especially at this level, and it can come back to hurt you and the team big time,” Gautam Gambhir told Star Sports.
“And that is exactly what happened in the previous game. Just keep the basics right. See, World Cup conditions are completely different from what you normally get back home. In Australia, it was swinging and it was still bouncing, decent carry as well with the new ball. But when you play at the sub-continent, these are flat wickets,” Gambhir added.
Speaking further, Gautam Gambhir pointed out Arshdeep’s limitations with the ball. He opined that the pacer doesn’t have the lethal pace in his repertoire and thus needs to develop his skills.
“You gonna have something different up your sleeves whether it’s a slower one or a slower bouncer. Some kind of variation. Unfortunately, he doesn’t have the speed to actually rattle the batsmen. So he’s got to develop some variation. He is not Umran Malik, he’s not Mohammed Siraj. So one thing he needs to do is probably try and keep it very simple and sort his no balls out which is equally important,” Gambhir said.
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