India’s preparation for the upcoming T20 World Cup received a major blow earlier this week as ace speedster Jasprit Bumrah was ruled out of the tournament due to an injury. The BCCI has not yet named a replacement and the fans are wondering who might replace the pacer. After the third T20I against South Africa, which Team India lost by 49 runs, head coach Rahul Dravid was asked whether Mohammed Shami would be replacing Bumrah for the marquee event in the Indian squad.
“In terms of who the replacement for Bumrah would be, we will have a look, we have time till October 15 so Shami is obviously someone who is in the standbys. But obviously, he could not play this series for us, which would have been ideal. But he is at the NCA at the moment, we have to get reports on how he is recovering and what’s his status after 14-15 days of COVID is,” said Dravid during a post-match press conference.
“We will take a call. Once we get his report, we and the selectors can take the call on how we move forward on it. What do we expect from the guy? We just want him to play some good cricket, have fun and enjoy himself and do the best he can. It is all we can ask from people, do the best you can,” he stated further.
In the last couple of T20I series against Australia and South Africa, Team India might have won the series, but bowling at the death has become a major problem for the Rohit Sharma-led side. And with Bumrah being ruled out, it needs to be seen who the management decides to go to for the World Cup.
“Obviously, you keep trying to get better in all the departments of the game. Certainly, bowling at the death, to be fair, the wickets have been really flat and it has not been easy to bowl at the death, not just for our team but the other team as well. Australia and South Africa are the two sides with a lot of experience in their bowling lineup but they have struggled at the death as well,” said Dravid.
“It is just not us, but yeah sure we have to look at ourselves. We need to see how we can improve and get better, this is one area where we would certainly want to improve because we know, as you play these big tournaments, margins can be really small and every run or boundary can matter,” he added.
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Lastly talking about the form of Harshal Patel, Dravid said: “Harshal has been someone who has really performed for the last couple of years. He is coming back after a month away from the game and he is coming back into some tough bowling conditions. It is not the easiest of bowling conditions to walk into when you have not played for the last six weeks. I think we really back him, we know he has the ability and the quality.”
“He is not the only one, overall as a whole, we need to get better at death. We need to improve and we need to execute better. I would not like to single out anyone individually. We need to get better as a group,” he added.
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