Need a strong pool to excel consistently: Bharat Arun

Interview

The current fast bowling unit in India is the strongest the country has ever seen. While first-choice seamers Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Shami, Ishant Sharma, Umesh Yadav and Bhuvneshwar Kumar are among the finest attacks in the world, the second string line-up of Mohammed Siraj, Navdeep Saini, T Natarajan and Shardul Thakur, to name a few, has shown they it’s ready to fill in those big shoes when summoned, as evidenced in the just-concluded Border-Gavaskar Trophy.

While a large part of the credit goes to the strong domestic structure in place, the man behind their seamless graduation to the elite level is Bharat Arun, the India bowling coach. Delighted at seeing a young and inexperienced attack excel in Australia, Arun spoke on the high quality bench strength and the art of playing fearless cricket.

Is the Brisbane Test an indicator that India is ready going ahead even if frontline seamers like Ishant Shami are not fit?

It is not done right now, we’ve been planning this over the last three years. We said, we need an excellent bench strength. If you need India to be doing well at the international level consistently, you need a pool of bowlers who will be rotated time and again so that time and again they stay fresh. And at any point of time, you will be fielding a fresh set of bowlers who will be rearing to go, who are very good at the international scene. So, now, we are blessed with a great bench strength. It’s very heartening to know when they were given the opportunity, they have come to the party and gone on and done great things for the country. This (Australia) tour would give them the necessary confidence to do well for the country at any given point of time.

With Siraj, Shardul and Saini doing so well, do you think India is ready for transition considering Ishant and Shami are not getting any younger?

It’s a very healthy trend. It’s an embarrassment of riches. Now, you cannot take away the credit from what these bowlers have done — Ishant, Shami or Umesh Yadav have been magnificent for India and they still have a lot of cricket in them. But, as I said earlier, for us to rotate the bowlers and make sure each one is absolutely fit and raring to go, to be able to bowl 140, I think this tour has taken a lot out of these boys because of the spate of injuries that have happened. More than looking at how we are going to phase them out, I think they have enough cricket, their experience is outstanding and they are still good enough to perform for India. Yes, these boys will also be there. We spoke about the rotation policy, they all will be rotated and make sure we will put out the best team on the park.

One of the traits of this India team is the five-bowler theory, no matter what the conditions are. You persisted with that in Australia despite a depleting bench strength.

We had formed this five-bowler theory three years ago and most of the times we stick with five bowlers abroad. To bowl out a team, in conditions abroad, demands a lot out of four bowlers. It’s a huge task for us to do that. Virat Kohli and Ravi Shastri have been firm on the decision that we need to be playing five bowlers to be successful abroad. Sometimes, you may lose matches but the guiding principle of this team is in being fearless and honest. Even in the last Test match (at Brisbane), there were discussions about playing the extra batsman but we thought that would be a negative move. All of us, the captain and the support staff, felt that the five-bowler theory has worked for us, let us back that. Also the fact that Washington Sundar, the way he was batting in the nets, that he is a capable bat. Also being a left-hander, let’s be positive and take the five bowler theory.