Rohit says India working to its strengths, spin all-rounders
The India skipper refused to say that his bowling attack is loaded with spinners, instead categorising three as all-rounders
Dubai: “We have two spinners. The rest of the three are all-rounders. I am not looking at them as five spinners.”
That was the long and short of skipper Rohit Sharma explaining India’s spin-heavy bowling department while the other teams in the Champions Trophy have done the opposite.
India has the advantage of playing all the matches in Dubai where the pitches are expected to be slow. Most certainly not as high scoring as matches in Pakistan (Lahore, Karachi and Rawalpindi). India’s opponents in Group A -- Bangladesh, Pakistan and New Zealand -- are playing a solitary league match in Dubai.
Experts have suggested that some of the pitches may have life for the fast bowlers. Few of the tracks have been kept relatively fresh for the world event. There could also be swing under the floodlights. But India are working to a plan – their strengths, as Rohit put it.
“Those three guys – Ravindra Jadeja, Washy (Sundar) and Axar (Patel) can bat and bowl,” he said. “When other teams have pace all-rounders, we say having five-six bowling options is a good thing. But we are working with what our strengths are. The three of them give a different dimension to the team, add a lot and give us a lot of depth. That is why we wanted players who have two skills, rather than one skill.”
It’s a formula India have tried consistently across formats of late. Stock the team with all-rounders. Ensure even the No.8 can bat well, when required, so that the top and the middle order has the licence to go hard. It wasn’t the ideal strategy for Test match conditions in Australia. It worked perfectly well in T20Is. Whether ODI cricket is an extension of T20 or compressed Test cricket, India continue to trust their all-rounders.
Leading the bowling attack will be three specialists – Mohammed Shami, Arshdeep Singh and Kuldeep Yadav. The England series provided India an opportunity to get used to what was widely seen as inevitable, Jasprit Bumrah losing his battle against time to regain fitness. To fill that void, India want to play an extra spinner over their earlier strategy to use three pacers and allrounder Hardik Pandya. Afterall, the fourth pacer cannot be a Bumrah and Mohammed Siraj has been overlooked.
It would be easy to predict that Kuldeep Yadav will join forces with Jadeja and Axar. And Shami will start with Arshdeep. But head coach Gautam Gambhir is known to spring surprises.
“Their bowling fitness is fine,” Rohit said about his main pace and spin weapons, Shami and Kuldeep, both having recently returned from injury. “All we wanted with Shami was to get him back wearing India colours. Whether he got wickets or not (against England) was immaterial. Whatever I’ve seen of him so far, he looks perfectly fine. Hopefully he can find some rhythm early on in this tournament and help the team. Kuldeep again very similar. The two games that he played, the numbers will not show. For certain players, it’s just about getting them back to playing. The numbers will come. If these two guys are in form, the team looks very, very different.”
Rohit also kept the suspense over the chances of Varun Chakravarthy playing. The mystery spinner was a late addition to the squad. It’s a matter of when India want to throw him at the deep end, and against whom. If not Bangladesh, he might be handed his first match to test Pakistan batters, who have played him only once before, in a T20I.
“Varun doesn’t bowl variations to us in the nets. He just bowls in one way. Maybe he doesn’t want to show us as well, what he has got,” Rohit said. “It’s a good thing that he has certain weapons that he wants to put out when it matters. He has got something different, which is why he is with us.”
