Team India’s bowling coach Bharath Arun on Friday countered India skipper Virat Kohli’s comments by saying that Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja are still “not out of the race” for 2019 World Cup. Kohli had stated that the wrist spin duo of leggie Yuzvendra Chahal and chinaman Kuldeep Yadav could be a massive X-factor in world cup.
However, Arun’s comments on the eve of the fourth ODI at the New Wanderers Stadium, could come as a new ray of hope for Ashwin and Jadeja, who were ruling the ICC ODI bowlers’ rankings not very long ago.
“We wanted to look at all the existing talent that we had. We wanted to look at the pool of talent and then we would decide on who we would want for the ultimate goal of the World Cup,” Arun told.
“It is not that Ashwin and Jadeja are out of the race. They could still be in the team,” he added.
“In Sri Lanka series in August last year, we wanted to try out all our talent. We had a good pool of bowlers. As you would understand, the volume of cricket that we are playing, we need to keep rotating those bowlers so that they are fresh for every format,” he said.
“These two bowlers showed a lot of promise and we said in overseas conditions a wrist spinner would do lot more than finger spinner. Rightly so they have come to the party here,” he added.
