Prasidh Krishna.
Credit: PTI
Thiruvananthapuram: Suryakumar Yadav's leadership philosophy is very similar to his T20 batsmanship - uncomplicated and that's what is helping the younger brigade perform well, feels team's leading pacer Prasidh Krishna.
India is already 2-0 up in the five-match T20I series against Australia under Surya's captaincy and Prasidh himself has got a lot of backing as he came back strongly in the second game with three wickets after being hit for 50 in the first.
Asked about Surya's captaincy style, Prasidh replied, "It shows in the way he (Suryakumar) bats - very similar in his captaincy as well. He trusts his players, backs all of us to do what we want to do and he's there right behind us to support if there's anything going wrong."
Rohit Sharma is known to give a lot of freedom to his players and his MI teammate is no different.
"That has been the name of the game and then that's the word around freedom, go and execute your plans out there and everyone trusts each other in the team," the Karnataka speedster said.
He said he learnt a lot being a part of India's World Cup campaign though he did not play a single match. India lost to Australia in the summit clash.
"Being a part of the squad was massive learning for me. That's the biggest learning curve I've had since I've been a part of the team. I got to learn a lot the way people prepare, the amount of information that you can take." However there is no substitute of learning by doing and Prasidh understood the difference of sitting in a World Cup dug-out and being out there and executing it for the team in pressure scenario.
"But I thought the information (that he got during World Cup) was too theoretical for me, I was sitting at the dug out speaking to my teammates. Here (in a match) it is more than theoretical, you need to be able to execute things. It took me a couple of overs (in Visakhapatnam) but after that I was in competition mode."
Tackling the dew
While India had the luxury of defending a huge score like 235, Prasidh admitted that bowling second under lights in Sunday's match was difficult as the ball was really getting wet due to dew at the Greenfield International Stadium.
'It was quite difficult to bowl. We were planning to tackle dew even in Vizag but luckily we didn’t have to do much there. But here (Thiruvananthapuram) it was really wet. Even in the eighth over when Mukesh (Kumar) was bowling, there was a lot of dew,' Prasidh said at the post match press conference.
"But this is part of the challenge of playing in India. As a bowling unit, we need to learn to tackle dew. It is really difficult but then we need to adapt to it. We were prepared, we knew that dew was going to play a huge role."
Elaborating on how the team prepared for bowling with dew, he said, 'You need to find out what is working out for you and then go with that. We tried a lot of things - cutters, length balls and yorkers. Slower ball was skidding through, and we executed some yorkers well.
"We did practice with wet balls after putting them in water, but then there’s no real game pressure during practice, unlike a match. You can’t do much about the dew. You do practice, but then when it comes to the match, it’s a different ball game."
"I got a fresh towel when I finished the third over and then fourth over, the second ball, the towel is all wet," said the 27-year-old pacer who returned with figures of 3/41 on Sunday.
Prasidh even spoke to the pitch curator who told him that a part of the soil was brought from Karnataka.
"So, we knew that it was going to be slightly on the slower side but with dew, we knew that it was going to play a role and batting would be easier in the second half."
He praised spinners Axar Patel (1/25) and Ravi Bishnoi (3/32) for the way they bowled under dew.
"There was dew in the sixth, seventh and eight over. The way Axar came to bowl the way he did, Ravi Bishnoi picked up two wickets at crucial junctures. They played a very important role despite dew setting in."
"That is what what we do as a bowling unit. There will be days when one or two among us may not have a great that but others will chip in," he concluded.