The Indian bowlers were left bewildered at the Kensington Oval last night. The ball was going straight on and the conditions too were of very little help. The Sri Lankan batsmen made merry in perfect batting conditions causing the Indian skipper Virat Kohli to look for different bowling options in order to stem the flow of runs.
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Kedar Jadhav and Virat himself took on the bowling mantle trying to fill up for Jadeja’s overs, as he was finding it extremely difficult against Kusal Mendis. Mendis was charging down the track to Jadeja and skittling him over the mid wicket boundary. Virat brought himself on as he felt that seamers always had a little bit of help in English conditions. But the idea to bring on Kedar instead of Yuvraj bamboozled a few fans, as Yuvi is a proven match winner with the ball, something that was quite evident during the 2011 World Cup campaign.
In the press conference that followed the game, Virat revealed the reason for making Jadhav bowl instead of Yuvraj.
“See, if the team is four or five down and you have to get few overs out of the way from the part-timer, then Yuvi can be used, but at that stage, I did not think — because Jadeja was also going for runs, and it was difficult to bowl with the breeze going that side to the shorter boundary. If Jadeja is finding it difficult, then obviously Yuvi would have found it a bit more difficult as well” said Kohli
“I thought — I spoke to MS as well, and we both thought that Kedar was a better bet at that time. Then because in England, generally, if you bowl little seamers, then you can trouble the batsman. So I thought why not try a few overs there as well? So I think we covered up pretty well. Wicket is a bit more dry than, which obviously comes into contention and I don’t,” Kohli further added.
Kohli was then also asked about the virtual quarter final against South Africa and how the Indian team would be shaping up for it.
“Well, as I said, it’s pretty clear. It’s like a quarterfinal. It’s against a very high quality side, and we have to go out there and play good cricket. If we had won this game, we still would have gone with the same mindset of winning the tournament as well. So there’s no room for complacency in a tournament like this, and we as a team certainly don’t feel that, even if we had four points on the board right now, we still would have gone out there to try to beat South Africa, and that’s exactly the mindset we are going to take into the next game,”
India take on South Africa on Sunday in a must win game for both teams
