Young India pacer Arshdeep Singh showed great resolve in the first T20I of the five-match series against West Indies after being hit for a couple of boundaries by opening batter Kyle Mayers. The left-arm seamer dismissed Mayers and then he took another wicket in the game to return with figures of 2-24. Ahead of the second T20I, senior pacer Bhuvneshwar Kumar addressed a virtual press conference, where he heaped praise on Arshdeep.
"When Arshdeep bowls, he knows what he wants to do and he also knows what fields he wants for different batters. This is a very rare quality, when someone is this young, this quality is rare. He has been consistent, he knows what he wants to do. The way he thinks about the game, it is the best thing about his game," said Bhuvneshwar during a virtual press conference.
When asked about his bowling and performances this year, Bhuvneshwar said: "Honestly, I have not made any change in my bowling, it was just a matter of bowling more. When you bowl more, you get confidence and you get back into rhythm. If you stay fit, it helps your bowling. I have not made any change in particular. Whenever I got an opportunity to bowl at home, I did that."
In the first T20I, Suryakumar Yadav had opened the batting alongside Rohit Sharma. Talking about the move, he said: "I really do not know. But I can say it was not a random move, there was thought behind it. I am sure they want to achieve something out of it."
The seamer also said that the game has changed a lot since his debut, and hence the bowlers have added different variations to their bowling arsenal to fox the batters.
"Since my debut, there have been a lot of changes. When I started, especially in ODIs, 300 was not a par score. But right now, 300 is a par score. In T20Is, 180-190, every team knows that it is chaseable. So this has been a big change, as the game keeps going ahead, bowlers and batters will keep evolving," said Bhuvneshwar.
"There have been changes. I learnt a few variations, knuckle ball, I learnt to bowl that a couple of years ago. Every bowler has different variations, earlier we used to know that batter will take time but now they start to go after the bowlers right away," he added.