Indian skipper Shubman Gill has opened up about the main reasons for not playing the attacking spinner Kuldeep Yadav in the three-match ODI series against England, which India lost 1-2.
Gill has cited that pitches are not responsive to spinners and that India eventually had to get defensive with the ball when the spinners bowled in the middle overs as reasons for Kuldeep being benched in all three games of the series.
“So the matches that we played prior to this, we had seen the wickets were not offering that much to the spinners. Whenever spinners came into bowl, we felt that we kind of had to go into defensive, whenever the fast bowlers were bowling, it felt like something was happening. And that was the thought process behind not bringing in extra spinner,” Gill said.
India went ahead with Axar Patel as the lone spin bowling option in the third and final ODI at Lord’s on Sunday, July 19. Despite Jasprit Bumrah missing the final ODI, Gill hasn’t brought in Kuldeep Yadav to the XI, which didn’t go down well with many.
“With the fast bowlers, you obviously want to create pressure and see chances get created. Maybe in hindsight, looking at the wicket, I think it got a little bit slow. When we were bowling and when Axar bhai was bowling for us, it didn’t look like the wicket would get that slow, but when they came into bowl, it did look like the wicket got a bit slower as the game went on,” Gill added.
“Our bowling is a little thin on experience and I think we were put under the pump in this match and didn’t respond well. We didn’t start up well in the powerplay. We gave away too many loose balls and then we were always kind of chasing the game, trying to take wickets, create something — that shouldn’t happen for us. And then the game was already kind of ahead from us and then the last few overs we gave 90 runs, that is where it all went down. It (momentum) completely shifted, we were sort of looking at maybe 340-350 at one point and then they got close to 390 (387). And chasing 390, no matter what surface you’re batting in, it’s never easy,” Gill concluded.
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