Just ahead of the T20 World Cup, the Indian captain Rohit Sharma has shown faith in fast bowlers Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Harshal Patel despite the duo having a terrible run in the Australia series. After a terrible Asia Cup campaign, the Indian team finally had something to be happy about after they won the three-match series against Australia by 2-1 after securing a six-wicket win in the third game on Sunday.
Bhuvneshwar and Harshal made a comeback from injury but gave away lots of runs in the last series as they concluded with an economy rate of 12 plus.
“It’s important that we give him (Bhuvi) that space because when you have a guy like him in the team and the quality that he brings, we know that he’s had more good days than the bad days in the last so many years.”
“We’ve been working on some plans, and hopefully, we can give him more options to bowl in the death. And then he’ll be as good as he was before,” said Rohit in the post-match media interaction.
Rohit Sharma was seen encouraging the UP-based bowler, despite his disappointing run in the recently concluded India vs Australia series. “I don’t see that he is short in confidence. It’s time for us to show that faith in him and keep backing his skillset. From our side, we are trying to work out what are the things we can do because when you’re bowling in the death you can’t be predictable. You need to have options to bowl on both sides of the ground and set the field accordingly.”
“And someone with that experience it’ll be easy for him to grasp all that knowledge.”
Harshal Patel who made a comeback after a long injury also struggled and conceded 99 runs in eight overs in the three games but Rohit stated, “Harshal is an important player for us without a doubt. Coming back after an injury is never easy. He missed cricket for close to two months. It’s not easy (to come back), so we’ve not judged him on how he is performing in these three games, because we know his quality.”
“He has bowled some really tough overs for us in the past and also for his franchise. It’s important to keep showing that faith and I’m sure that you know he’s also trying to rectify those mistakes and he’s not too far from his best.”
Evaluating the team’s overall performance in the series, the Indian skipper said, “We want to tighten in all departments. I know our batting has been brilliant in the last eight or nine games that we played since Asia Cup.
“But we still want us to be more clinical, more aggressive, you know and play with that aggression. We want to keep doing that.” The Indian batting unit had a great series while the bowlers did not have a decent series.” He added.
“Bowling is the main focus. Fielding is one aspect which will never stop. We want to keep improving as a fielding unit all the time.”
