Mohammed Siraj is the only pacer from India’s ongoing T20I series against the West Indies who makes former left-arm quick Ashish Nehra’s side for this year’s T20 World Cup in Australia. He believes Siraj should combine forces with spearhead Jasprit Bumrah, the experienced Mohammed Shami and promising Prasidh Krishna for the major world event Down Under.
India are currently in trial mode as far as their backup seam bowling options are concerned. The selectors opted to rest Bumrah and Shami for the West Indies series but kept senior-pro Bhuvneshwar Kumar in the mix along with Siraj, Deepak Chahar, Harshal Patel, Avesh Khan, Shardul Thakur.
For the opening T20I in Kolkata on February 16, India played Harshal and Deepak alongside Bhuvneshwar, with Siraj and Thakur missing out. For Nehra, it is Siraj who should be getting the nod for matches in the build-up to the World Cup and selectors shall also reconsider their plans around Prasidh, who is currently playing only in ODIs.
“The World Cup is very far away. If the squad for the World Cup is to be announced tomorrow, there is only one pace bowler from this team who will make it, and that is Siraj,”
Nehra told Cricbuzz, with the aim to finalise pace options keeping the Australian conditions in mind.
With the hard and fast surfaces Down Under requiring quicks who can bang the ball in at pace, Nehra believes selectors and the management should think along those lines when they pick the squad and the XIs ahead of the World Cup in October-November.
Siraj, who made his T20I debut back in late 2017, has been part of only three further games in the shortest format for India. But the 27-year-old seems to be turning a corner for himself via his stint in the Indian Premier League for Royal Challengers Bangalore, emerging as a stronger all-phase bowler. Since the start of 2020, he has taken 22 wickets in RCB colours with a respectable economy rate of 7.44. He was deservingly retained by the team ahead of the 2022 edition of the league.
Nehra also named Prasidh as his fourth specialist seamer who can make the World Cup squad. While the pacer is not part of India’s T20I squad against West Indies, he impressed one and all with his pace and hostility in the preceding ODI series.
Notably, Prasidh was bought at the IPL 2022 mega auction for a whopping INR 10 crores by Rajasthan Royals for his tall stature, pace and the ability to bowl the hard lengths.
In a similar mould, India have Avesh Khan in their T20I squad. Avesh, who remains uncapped, made the cut via his performances in IPL 2021 where he ended as the second highest wicket-taker with 24 scalps for Delhi. But Nehra gave the nod to Prasidh over him in his team.
“The World Cup is very far away. If the squad for the World Cup is to be announced tomorrow, there is only one pace bowler from this team who will make it, and that is Siraj. My choice for the World Cup would be Siraj, Bumrah, Shami and Prasidh Krishna. We have seen what he can do, and after these four, comes Deepak Chahar.”
he said, before also tagging along Deepak over Thakur as his preferred pace bowling allrounder.
At the same time, however, Nehra said it is good that new limited-overs captain Rohit Sharma is “backing” Bhuvneshwar in T20Is after his notable sacking from the ODI squad for the West Indies series.
While injuries threaten to bring an unceremonious halt to his career, Bhuvneshwar boasts of an impressive T20I record and bowled a decent spell of 1/31 in the first game of series.
