India’s highest wicket-taker at the T20 World Cup, Arshdeep Singh, who was pivotal in the Men in Blue winning their second title, has credited pace ace Jasprit Bumrah for guiding him throughout the tournament.
“Jassi bhai is a unique bowler with a different bowling action, so the things that work for him might not work for others, but he makes it a point to guide me on how to adjust the bounce and even suggest areas where the ball will reverse quicker. During the World Cup, he told me not to go for swing early on because on those surfaces, the ball won’t swing much, so it was better to hit the hard lengths,” Arshdeep told |
“He keeps telling me those things throughout the match and our discussions often get animated because I am a young blood, so at times, I do disagree with him. But later, I realised that the suggestions given by Jassi bhai would have indeed worked had I listened to him. And, I learn from my mistakes and try to get better,” the 25-year-old quipped.
The left-arm pacer cited an incident during the Super Eight match against Afghanistan where Bumrah’s suggested field placements paid off even though Arshdeep didn’t agree with him at the outset. “During the match against Afghanistan, the ball was reversing a lot, so he suggested a few field placements accordingly. But I thought otherwise and suggested a different field setting. He told me calmly, ‘You should have faith in me and send the fielder to where I am suggesting.’ I listened to him and bowled in the right areas. As luck would have it, we got an edge and the ball went straight to the fielder, and then, Jassi bhai walked up to me with a smile and said, ‘See, you should have faith in me.’”
Arshdeep, who has proven his credentials in the shortest format over the years and also equalled the record for picking the most wickets in a single T20 World Cup campaign, with 17 scalps this in this year’s edition, wants to make the transition to red-ball cricket some day and said that Bumrah has been encouraging him in that endeavour. “I want to play all three formats, and whenever I have spoken to Jassi bhai, he has told me, ‘You have to play all three formats. Playing white ball is good, but when you play red ball, you can create a legacy’. He has always motivated me to focus on red-ball cricket as well,” he said.
