'India in need of a left-arm seamer'

India’s bowling resources have never looked better than they do at the moment. At any given point in time, there are five-six quality bowlers ready to be picked. Despite not having R Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Mohammad Shami, Umesh Yadav and Ishant Sharma for the ongoing ODI series against Sri Lanka, India still have managed to line-up a pretty good attack.

While agreeing that most of the bases were covered so far as the bowling unit was concerned, India’s bowling coach felt that it would be great if they could unearth a quality left-armer who could complement the attack.

“Wrist spinners are there… We have Kuldeep (Yadav) and (Yuzvendra) Chahal and a pretty healthy wrist-spin options. Yes we are looking at left-arm fast bowling. If we can get even one good left-arm fast bowler it will go well for the side,” he pointed out.

But for that missing left-arm fast bowling option, Arun felt, the Indian attack had enough variety in it. “We are blessed to have a bowling attack that’s so versatile and each one’s wants are so different from the other. So, it’s about what the bowler wants to work on and my job is to give them the feedback; the right feedback that helps them to evolve as bowlers,” he offered.

Arun wasn’t too happy with the number of wides India bowled in the first ODI though. Except Axar Patel all the other bowlers were guilty of bowling at least one wide. 

“We bowled about 10 wides in that first game,” he noted. “There was a very strong breeze but that’s no excuse. We need to constantly look at improving and that’s one of the areas. We need to assess the conditions early and adapt ourselves to those conditions and looking at that, it is a lesson for us to learn,” he offered.

Hardik Pandya shared the new ball with Bhuvneshwar Kumar in the first ODI and Arun revealed that it was part team’s plan to try different bowlers at different points of time. The former India paceman also stressed that Pandya needed to be more skilful to bowl his full quota of 10 overs.

“If you look at Hardik, he works up very good speeds and bowls 135 plus consistently and we need to have our options open throughout. So we like to try out different bowlers at different points of time.

“More than me I think Hardik wants to bowl those 10 overs and he does understand that to bowl those 10 overs he needs to work more on his skills and become more skilful and he is someone who works really hard. He is not afraid of trying different things. So my job is a lot easier to be working with somebody like Hardik who wants to upgrade his skills.”

Arun, though, refused to set any time-frame for Pandya to evolve as a more nuanced bowler saying it would put unnecessary pressure on the player.

“If you ask me the time frame and if I ask them to do something, I would like to see them do it immediately,” he began. “But each bowler takes a little while to be able to do that in a match, you need to put in some hours of practice and you need to perfect that in practice before you are able to put that skill in the match. Not only Hardik, it depends on what the bowler is capable of doing, not only their actions but what is easier for them to do. So it is my job to understand that and give them the right feedback,” he thought.