India isn’t losing too many wickets early on and going after runs past the 15-over mark in the ongoing Micromax Cup ODI series.
“This is a conscious effort, especially with two new balls and the conditions we expect in Australia. That is going to be vital to India’s plan to keep as many wickets as possible for the later half of the innings,” Sanjay Bangar, when asked about it at the pre-match press conference, said.
The assistant coach of the Indian team revealed that the Indian players were practicing for the longer formats as well. “Players who are part of the Test team are also practising with the team. We’ve been doing this with the Test matches in mind as well. The preparations are happening simultaneously.”
“As you must have seen, there is a lot of rotation happening. Bowlers who have had big workloads like Bhuvaneswar Kumar and Mohammad Shami have been rested. The rotation policy is being followed with an intention to have an all-fit pace attack in Australia,” he said.
On the positives gained in this series, Bangar said there was an impression that there were not too many spinners around. “If you see now there are four to five who are in contention.
“Umesh Yadav has been a big plus. He has improved a lot as the matches progressed. He has shown good control and took a lot of wickets in the initial overs, a crucial aspect in winning games,” he said.
“The reason why India has done well in the last 10 to 11 matches, after the England series, is because a lot of our batsmen have managed to get big scores. We have seen seven hundreds already, and all are from different batsmen. It is great that everybody is chipping in.”
“The preparation is spot on and the workload is monitored properly. We probably have the best seam attack going into the Australian series in a number of years now,” he said.
Bangar said 80 per cent of the team is playing in both formats of the game. “The more time we spend in Australia, the easier it would be to get used to the pace and bounce of the wickets there. It will help India when it approaches a tournament like the World Cup,” he added.
Sri Lanka’s Lahiru Thirimanne said the team’s failure in this series was owing to the inability of its bowlers to pick up wickets, and admitted that losing four matches in a row had put his team in a tough position.
