Perfect mix of skills & pace USP of our attack: Shami

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Perfect mix of skills & pace USP of our attack: Shami

Sunday, 19 May 2019 | IANS | New Delhi

Perfect mix of skills & pace USP of our attack: Shami

Senior pacer calls it dream come true as India look upto bowlers as main strength in upcoming WC

Who would have thought that after the 2015 World Cup when Virat Kohli and boys fly down to England to compete in the 2019 Cup, it would be the Indian bowlers and not the batters who would be the talking point. But the change in perception did not happen overnight. It has taken a couple of years for the Indian team management to create a pool of fast bowlers who have the perfect mix of skills and pace to push opposition batsmen on the backfoot.

If Kohli has a champion death bowler in Jasprit Bumrah, the captain has a genuine fast bowler who can swing the ball at top speed in Mohammed Shami. Not to forget the swing maestro in Bhuvneshwar Kumar. As a captain, Kohli could not have asked for a better pace battery as India look to stay true to the favourites tag and win their third 50-over title.

Not just the team, but even cricket fanatics in the country cannot wait for the trio to unleash themselves on opposition batsmen and senior-most pacer Mohammed Shami sums it up best.

Speaking about, Shami said that it was a matter of pride for the whole bowling unit to be considered a strength of this World Cup squad. Having seen batsmen dominate the scenes in Indian cricket over the years, Shami said it was like a dream come true that this team boasts of one of the best pace-bowling attack that India has ever produced.

"In the last 20 or 30 years, if you look back at the history of Indian cricket, it has always been dominated by the batsmen. You cannot really blame the bowlers because the wickets that were prepared in India were also not helpful towards the bowlers. Things have started improving in the last five to seven years and to be honest it has been a process and not something that has happened overnight. We have been bowling as a unit and that helps.

"The best part is that along with variety, we have an attack that can bowl fast. Having skills and pace together is the USP of this side as that somewhere increases the confidence of the attack. To be honest, it is like a dream that has come true and I feel very proud that today people talk about our bowling unit as one of the best — a thing that wasn't heard much, but is now called our strength," he explained.

 

‘wicket-takers will benefit’

Mumbai: Batting great Rahul Dravid on Friday said the presence of wicket-taking bowlers will greatly benefit India in the middle overs of what is expected to be a high-scoring World Cup.

"In a World Cup, I believe, having experienced some of the conditions in England last year with the A tour, it would be a high scoring World Cup. And in a high scoring WC, having bowlers who can take wickets in the middle will be very important. I think India is lucky in that regard," Dravid spoke exclusively on Star Sports at the Star Re.Imagine Awards.

The former captain added, "People like (Jasprit) Bumrah, Kuldeep Yadav and Yuzvendra Chahal... (We have) got bowlers who can take wickets. Teams that are taking wickets through those middle-overs in those high scoring games have a better chance of restricting the opposition."

The legendary batsman showered accolades on current captain Virat Kohli.

"Virat, you know he just keeps improving, keeps getting better. He is setting bars and standards that possibly we thought would never be achieved. Sachin (Tendulkar) scored 49-50 hundreds in one-day cricket. People thought that this would take a lot of time to achieve. Will it be ever achieved and now Virat is 10 away from it or close to it.

"One of the things about Virat is that even if he has a bad tour, it is not that he hasn't had bad tours, he had disappointing tour of England in 2014, he wasn't as successful in Australia first time around, but every time he goes back again he goes back as a better player. He sort of reinvents his game to a point where he is constantly improving," Dravid said.

Last but not the least, Dravid also had words of praise for two-time World Cup winning veteran Mahendra Singh Dhoni.

"The beauty about MS is that he plays these big tournaments and these big matches and that's why he finds himself in so many of these big games, he plays them, and they mean a lot, I tell a lot of under-19 boys, he is able to find a way to play it like it doesn't mean a lot, obviously it means a lot.

"He is able to see a bigger picture in it and say — I'm not defined by this particular game. It is a hard thing to do," Dravid said.

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