ICC World Cup 2019 | India’s strength is their fast bowlers, should play three of them, states Brian Lara
BCCI
Brian Lara has said that India’s pace attack is their key to success and they could consolidate their bowling lineup by including all three of them in the side along with the two spinners. He also stated that Rishabh Pant could also be given a chance to add aggressiveness to the batting order.
After quite some years, or maybe even the first time in their history, Indian cricket team’s pace bowlers have been the highlight of the team. In Jasprit Bumrah, India have the World’s number one ODI bowler. Moreover, to aid him, they have Bhuvneshwar Kumar, who could swing the ball well, and Mohammed Shami who has nine wickets in two matches in the tournament so far.
“Mohammed Shami has proved to be a wicket-taker. A lot of batsmen now try to stifle Jasprit Bumrah and because that happens, India would need somebody else to take wickets. Shami can do that and so can Kumar,” Brian Lara wrote in his column for the ICC.
The Men in Blue have had their bowlers split the wickets among them and there has not been a standout bowler as such due to the excellent performances that all of them have put in. While Chahal leads the charts for the team with 10 scalps, closely followed by Shami and Bumrah who have nine each.
“India has two good spinners and though I am not in the middle, I don’t think they are unplayable. If you get into the India spinners without losing any wickets, I don’t think they are going to be that effective. You can’t tell me Joe Root, Jos Buttler and guys who have played in the IPL against these spinners on Indian wickets are going to be panicking because of them.
“So India’s strength really is their fast bowlers, meaning it is not a bad option to play three of them and two spinners, because what you are getting out of Kedar Jadhav and Vijay Shankar is not that great. India could rely on Hardik Pandya batting at No. 6 and just have good bowlers,” the Windies legend added.
As far as the batting is concerned, though the team has managed to get decent totals and defend them successfully, once Rohit Sharma gets out early the team loses all its impetus.
“Pant cannot come in at the expense of Dhoni. His experience at the World Cup is crucial and the positive psychological effect his omission can have on the opposing team would be huge. I also think Dhoni is telling himself ‘listen I need to score faster and I need to rotate the strike.’ To fit Pant in you will need to look at one of Jadhav and Shankar,” Lara concluded on the matter.
