Arvind rues last over

“It was disappointing, bowling four good balls consecutively and then going for a four and two off the last two balls,” Arvind admitted on Sunday afternoon. “But then, seven runs from six balls is very easy in this format. We tried very hard, but I made a mistake on the fifth ball. I had Plan A and Plan B but could not execute them. I did not bowl in the correct areas.”

“Playing a lot of T20 games definitely helps you improve,” added Arvind, who has come on by leaps and bounds in the last year. “In this format, you never know -- the first ball may go for four or six. There is a lot to learn from here. If you bowl in the right areas, it is difficult to get you away. You can take time in the longer format because the batsman will not go after you right away, but in T20, you have to find the right spot from the start.”

Inevitably, talk veered to the absence of pace spearhead Zaheer Khan. “He is an experienced bowler, it is a loss for us,” Arvind remarked. “But it is a good experience to have to do things on our own. Whatever he had told us during the IPL, we are trying to execute those plans. We do miss his words of advice. There are other senior guys like Nannes, AB (de Villiers) and Vettori, they are the best guys (to give advice). But we miss Zaheer a lot.”