BENGALURU: ON Friday morning, Morne Morkel and India's bowling group had a general sit-down. The ongoing five-match T20I series between India and West Indies has not been a good one for both bowling groups and the hosts' bowling coach wanted to ensure that his wards were in a good frame of mind heading into the series decider at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru.
The group discussion centred around what parts of the Chinnaswamy surface the bowlers could potentially target to restrict the visiting batters. "We had a very nice sort of sit-down discussion this morning (Friday)," Morkel said in the pre-match press conference. "It was about identifying certain areas and what we can expect at this venue."
Historically, the Chinnaswamy Stadium favours batters. While the situation around the weather could be a complication, the smart money on the menu is for more runs. One reason that has affected the bowlers has been the lack of quality training sessions thanks to the constant loop of matches across the length and breadth of the country. From the time the ODI series began in Thiruvananthapuram on September 27, the team has been on an endless loop of cricket, hotel and airport (nine cities in 20 days, to be exact). “You know that you do not have the luxury of training sessions where you can go and work on a lot of stuff,” Morkel said. “Although you want to say, ‘okay, forget about it (the previous matches)’, you also want to take the learnings.
Why is quality training important? When you want to execute certain deliveries under high pressure — a wide yorker, for example — you try to land that ball on the same spot in training sessions before executing it in the match. From an Indian perspective, it doesn’t help that the make-up of the pace attack is bordering on inexperience at this level. Between Mayank Yadav and Prince Yadav, two of the three frontline pacers, the pair have played 18 T20Is. “I feel we can do a lot of planning; we can have conversations… how we can get guys or, you know, a younger sort of bowling attack, how can we get them to make smarter decisions under pressure?”
Combine flat batting tracks with a slightly inexperienced attack and you are asking for trouble. Even then, Morkel singled out Prince for the way in which he has managed to execute his skills. “He has done really well in executing his skills,” Morkel said. “He was quickly identified as a person who could bowl those death overs and that’s obviously very crucial in this format of the game.”
It’s one area where the hosts have let themselves down with the ball: their end-overs skills. In the fourth T20I in Hyderabad, they conceded 62 in four overs. In the previous game, they gave away 50. In the second T20I, another game West Indies won, they scored 53 in just 2.3 overs.
The same discussions — how to restrict the opposition batters in conditions like these — have been held inside the West Indies change room as well. While their coach Daren Sammy did opine that the conditions have been challenging for the bowlers, one topic of discussion has been around how best to sequence deliveries. What did the West Indian mean by that? “I think the onus is on sequencing your balls; your wide-yorkers, your slower balls and your bumpers… most times, no matter how good the wicket is, there's a spot on the wicket (which can trouble the batters). That is more challenging to get right. It's our duty and our job as bowlers to find that spot. Try to make them hit more of those balls.”