India pacer Jasprit Bumrah is excited about the return of Ashish Nehra in the team and is looking forward to pick the veteran pacer’s brain during the Twenty20 International series against Australia, beginning in Ranchi on Friday. The 38-year-old Nehra is making a comeback after playing T20I series against England earlier this year.
“He’s a very experienced player. I’ve played some cricket with him; the World T20. It’s really good to have him in the side... It’s a lot of fun. He has loads of experience to share. He’s very helpful for youngsters like me,” Bumrah was quoted by PTI. “The team atmosphere is good when he comes; it feels great to have him back in the side.”
Fitness plays a pivotal role and the onus lies on the cricketer to stay in the pink of health and extend his career, 23-year-old said. “It’s not only fast bowlers who need to put in extra effort. Yes they need to do extra [work] sometimes, but if you are not fit, you won’t be able to survive. It’s the responsibility of the player to look after his diet and training. Because of the amount of cricket we have been playing nowadays, everybody has to be fit,” said Bumrah.
With Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Bumrah operating at the tail end of the innings, India have developed a potent bowling combination. “We just want to improve ourselves every time, we keep asking questions to each other. We keep learning from the senior players on what else we can do and how to improve, how to adapt to different conditions, and the wickets. The focus is on training. We don’t focus on results. We want to get better every game.”
‘You have to adapt constantly’
India defeated Australia by six wickets the last time both the teams met in World T20 in March 2016, and prior to that they completed a 3-0 clean sweep Down Under in January. India have a 9-3 head-to-head record but Bumrah insisted that is not playing on his team’s mind. “We don’t think like that. We only focus on the game. Every format requires a little bit of skill level.We want to focus on that and if we do our basics right, everything else is taken care of.”
Having defeated Australia 4-1 in the one-dayers, the hosts look to stretch their dominance. “You do not need a drive when you’re playing for India. Any match you love representing your country. You love playing for India. It does not matter what format you play, you have to adapt constantly. (sic)”
Being a death bowler specialist, Bumrah said his role hardly changes in the ODI and T20 format. He said: “One-day and T20s are slightly different. In the situations where I bowl, in the death overs, it’s very similar. You’re hit over here as well as in ODIs – there isn’t too much of a difference.”
