Indian bowling coach Bharat Arun is confident that the team’s speed merchants Varun Aaron and Umesh Yadav will take up the challenge to “maintain speed as well as be accurate” in the upcoming three-Test series against Sri Lanka starting August 12 at Galle.
Asked if India’s fast men need to sacrifice a bit of pace in order to be more accurate, Arun said, “Sacrificing pace, I would not definitely want. I believe it is a wrong concept that people who generally bowl fast are erratic. It’s about efficient action and thought process, you can be fast as well as accurate. So the challenge for these two (Aaron and Umesh) would be to not compromise on speed and be a lot more accurate.”
The former Tamil Nadu seamer also seemed excited about Bhuvneshwar Kumar “rediscovering himself” after a lean patch.
When queried about what went wrong with Bhuvneshwar, the bowling coach said, “There were no problems as such. Just that he used to bring the ball back in (to the left handers) and he was having trouble with that. Question was the release point.
He worked pretty hard and that made a huge difference as he could again bring the ball back in. That made him a potent force.”
Arun also seemed ecstatic about the current bowling group, terming it as one with “great potential“.
“There is great potential in our fast bowling unit. We have couple of bowlers, who can clock 145 plus on a consistent basis. We have Ishant (Sharma) who is pretty experienced and can extract the bounce off the wicket.
“Of late, Ishant has been pretty consistent. That’s a very encouraging fact. We have variety with someone who can move and seam the ball, someone who can extract bounce and couple, who can clock 145 plus. Gives us enough variety to battle any conditions.”
Arun also advocated captain Virat Kohli’s theory of playing with five bowlers in order to win Test matches.
“If you look at world cricket, any Test team that dominated always had five bowlers. Probably if we get an all-rounder, preferably a batting all-rounder, it would be very beneficial for the side.
“Both Ashwin and Harbhajan have two Test centuries and Bhuvi is more than capable with the bat. Our lower-order needs to live up to this challenge.”
Sri Lanka has not been a happy hunting place for the Indian cricket team historically, but Arun does not want to dwell on the past.
“Well, I don’t look at too much of what happened in the past. The conditions are pretty similar to that in our country and I believe we have variety in our batting and bowling to adapt to these conditions. The challenge would be to do it as fast as possible to get the best results.”
Save Murali Vijay, none of the top-order batsmen have played a Test match in the island nation, but Arun feels that it’s hardly going to be a problem.
“Well, it was the same scenario when we did go to Australia. There were a lot of players playing for the first time in Australia. But in all four Tests, we put up 400 runs.
Not many teams have done that in Australia. It all depends on mentality, how quickly we can overcome shortcomings.
“This team is pretty experienced and have done well over last one year. They should come really good in this series.”
The bowling coach also seemed non-committal about the surfaces that will be on offer.
“Very difficult to speculate unless we get there and inspect the conditions. In the series against Pakistan, the wickets were spinner-friendly. Unless we have a look at the wicket, it is difficult to say. But we are pretty well-equipped to deal with any conditions.”
He also sidestepped the issue about whether this is the best chance for India to record a rare overseas Test series win in recent years.
“The question is about accepting things as they are.
Achieve what we want to achieve. It is all about collectively doing well. It is a challenge for us and we will take that head on.”
Asked about expectations from the upcoming Board President’s XI warm-up game starting tomorrow, Arun said,” It is a wonderful opportunity to get into match atmosphere. There is no greater preparation than playing a match.”
(PTI)
