Ahmedabad: India head coach Gautam Gambhir believes Jasprit Bumrah’s absence from the ICC Champions Trophy squad could be a golden opportunity for the side’s upcoming pace duo.
Speaking to reporters after India sealed their home ODI engagement against England 3-0, Gambhir suggested Bumrah’s absence from the setup for the Champions Trophy could be an opportunity for Harshit Rana and Arshdeep Singh to make a name for themselves.
“Harshit has shown some good signs, Arsh(deep) was also good today. Obviously, you’ll always miss a bowler like Jasprit Bumrah, his quality and stuff. But it’s always good to have Mohammed Shami back with his quality,” Gambhir said.
Bumrah, India’s bowling lynchpin, was a part of the Champions Trophy squad, but was ruled out due to a lower back injury.
Harshit, who made his ODI debut against England, was originally included in the ODI series as a reserve bowler. He picked up six wickets from his three outings, at an average of 24.33, and impressed the team management enough to pick him as Bumrah’s replacement for the Champions Trophy.
Meanwhile Arshdeep, already a regular in the T20I setup, featured in the the third ODI, and looked in good touch with his new-ball burst, getting the breakthroughs of Phil Salt and Ben Duckett in what was his ninth ODI.
Gambhir thinks the duo, still inexperienced in the format, could play a great supporting act to Shami, himself a returnee from the injury list, during the global event.
“So someone like Harshit or Arshdeep will have to put his hand up in the Champions Trophy along with Mohammed Shami. Someone missing out could be a great opportunity for someone else too,” Gambhir noted.
“That’s the way the sport goes, and hopefully these guys can put their hands up and deliver,” he said.
Discussing India’s strategies during the series, Gambhir stated that the side looked to rest and rotate players in the leadup to the Champions Trophy, and discussed the impact made by Shreyas Iyer against England.
“On Shreyas Iyer, he wasn’t supposed to be benched throughout the series. We wanted to give Yashasvi (Jaiswal) a go in the first game and see what he can bring to the table, because he was in really good form in Australia,” Gambhir said.
Iyer was initially not meant to play the opening ODI of the series, before getting late call up due to an injury to Virat Kohli. He featured in all three games and scoring 181 runs at an impressive strike rate of 123.12.
Gambhir hinted that Iyer would continue to feature for the side at No.4 at the Champions Trophy.
“We always knew that Shreyas will be an important player for us at No.4. Be it the World Cup, or forget about even the World Cup, he is always important for us. So when you’ve got three games,
you want to rotate your players a bit,” he added.
“Today, we could’ve played Shami but we wanted to give Arsh(deep) a go. When you’ve got Champions Trophy around the corner, you want to maximise these opportunities and everyone
a go. But Shreyas was always in the scheme of things,” Gambhir said.
India’s Champions Trophy campaign kicks off against Bangladesh on 20 February in Dubai.
India squad: Rohit Sharma (c), Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, KL Rahul, Rishabh Pant, Hardik Pandya, Axar Patel, Washington Sundar, Kuldeep Yadav, Harshit Rana, Mohd. Shami, Arshdeep Singh, Ravindra Jadeja, Varun Chakaravarthy.
