Press Trust of India
Galle, August 10: Indian team director Ravi Shastri stated here Monday that the learning curve for the Indian side is over and now the players have to deliver by winning Test matches abroad. And he asserted that to do that, India will have to take 20 wickets in a game.
“You don’t come to a cricket ground to draw a match so you have to play a brand of cricket where you look to take the game forward and you look to take 20 wickets, that is paramount. You have got to think how you can take 20 wickets to win the game,” Shastri stated.
Shastri also backed skipper Virat Kohli’s strategy to field five bowlers. “The fact that you have an additional bowler might just help you close matches that you couldn’t earlier. It’s not about getting big runs but about taking 20 wickets. Look at England in the ongoing Ashes. It’s their depth in bowling that has made all the difference,” he pointed out.
Talking about the Rohit Sharma and Cheteshwar Pujara debate, Shastri said Rohit deserves his place in the playing XI. “Rohit is a class player. It’s just a case of him smelling the coffee, spending some time in the middle and getting a start, and then we know what he can do. It could be a good position for him because he has that ability to counter attack and yet at the same time he will have to be tight. If Pujara is in the best five batsmen of the team he will play, if not, he doesn’t,” Shastri pointed out.
The policy of five bowlers puts added onus on the lower-order, with the spotlight firmly on Wriddhiman Saha at the No. 6 spot. The Bengal glovesman hasn’t been in the best of form though with the bat and it is a bit of a worry going into the series. Shastri however, is not worried.
“Saha is a very good player and he might have got out cheaply but he has got the temperament to score runs. He batted really well in Sydney to save that Test match. It’s converting that start into one big score and giving himself the self-belief that he can perform,” the team director asserted.
