Impressed with the excellent bowling show by the Indian team so far, former captain Sunil Gavaskar on Thursday said the bowlers had combined well as a unit to pick all the opposition wickets in the seven wins on the trot in the ongoing cricket World Cup.
India, who thrashed Bangladesh in the quarterfinals here on Thursday, are well on course to defending their title as the bowling attack led by Mohammed Shami — highest wicket-taker (17 scalps in six games) in the tournament so far — has managed to bundle out the opposition in all the games, and Gavaskar is impressed with the show by the bowlers.
“They are combining well as a bowling unit. The seam bowlers are keeping the pressure on, somebody is getting you early wickets and then there is no leakage of runs. Sometimes the first-change bowler comes and he leaks a lot of runs; that hasn’t happened. The spinners have kept it tight as well.
So all told, the bowling unit has been very impressive,” Gavaskar told NDTV after India’s 109-run win against Bangladesh.
“They have dismissed have every single team they have played against and — I think — what more can a captain ask for. He gets into a position where he really doesn’t have to worry too much about one bowler getting hammered — that can happen in a one-day situation,” he added.
Gavaskar also praised Dhoni’s handling of his regular and non-regular bowling options.
“What Dhoni is doing is that he is using Suresh Raina very cleverly. He is bringing him in on if [Ravindra] Jadeja or [Ravinchandran] Ashwin go for a few runs in their first couple of overs till they settle down and then Raina comes in and bowls 3-4 quick overs and sometimes more than that, picks up a wicket, keeps it tight and then Dhoni can go back to the spinners and get them to bowl well,” he said.
