New Delhi: The Indian team has witnessed a lot of success in the recent past. They have established themselves a superpower in Test cricket and on the bowling front, the fast bowlers have complemented the spinners beautifully, helping India possess an all-round strong bowling line-up in their arsenal.
The consistent performances by the Indian pacemen has pleased the legendary Kapil Dev who believes that they can be relied upon by the team besides the spinners.
The World Cup winning captain, when asked about the performance of the fast bowlers which includes the likes of Umesh Yadav, Mohammad Shami and Bhuvneshwar Kumar to name a few, said, “Your question has made me so happy because today we have started depending on fast bowlers. There was a time we didn’t have any fast bowlers and today we have so many fast bowlers. The people who are sitting out could have played for India any day.”
The former iconic all-rounder spoke to the reporters where a special preview of India was made in Khusii, an NGO of whom he is the chairperson.
While interacting with the media at the event in Worli, he declined to comment on Indian head coach Ravi Shastri’s take that the current Indian team is better than the other teams that the country has had over the past 20 years. He said, “That is his (Shastri’s) thought, either you take it or drop it, whatever you like.”
But when he was pressed further to give his take on this comment, he said, “That is his thought process, I have my own thought process. I always believe that younger teams are much better, they have done well and we should be proud about that.”
Kapil Dev has undoubtedly been one of India’s best all-rounders. It was under his leadership that the Indian team won it’s maiden World Cup in 1983 and ever since his retirement, the men in blue has been in the lookout for a fast-bowling all-rounder, with consistency and accuracy.
Now, they seem to have found one in the form of 23-year old Hardik Pandya. The Baroda cricketer has been a part of the team for some time now and his heroics with the bat was seen in this year’s Champions Trophy, where he cleared the field with some strong and powerful shots.
In the final against Pakistan when the top-order batsmen faltered, Pandya played a powerful knock, even though he couldn’t lead India to victory. He made his Test debut in the ongoing series against Sri Lanka and struck his maiden half-century in his very first match.
Kapil however believes that Pandya has the ingredients for a perfect all-rounder but also said that he needed to carry on performing well. He said, “He has the ability (to become a good all-rounder) and he has to keep on performing.”