India's fast bowling coach Morne Morkel has offered his bowlers some key suggestions ahead of the series-deciding fifth T20I against the West Indies in Bengaluru.
Due to the rapid turnaround between games, Morkel emphasized that the team does not have the luxury of extra training sessions to fix technical issues, so the bowlers must mentally put the tough performances behind them.
Acknowledging the difficult, flat batting pitches in the ongoing series where the last six innings crossed totals of 200, he urged the Indian pacers to execute better tactical decisions when under attack.
"Obviously, you need to move on. It is quite a quick turnaround in between games. You do not have the luxury of training sessions where you can go and work on a lot of stuff," Morkel said in the pre-match press conference on Friday (October 16).
"You also want to take the learnings. So, we had a very nice sort of sit-down discussion this morning with some of the bowlers just to identify certain areas and what we can expect here.
"For me, it is just how we can get a younger sort of bowling attack to make smarter decisions under pressure," he added.
Despite the tough, high-pressure environment for a young bowling group missing Jasprit Bumrah, Morkel singled out Prince Yadav for his exceptional maturity and simple execution.
"It has been a great learning for our bowling group. Prince Yadav, who came into the squad, has done really well in executing his skills. He's a guy that keeps it very simple.
"He understands his strengths, and he sticks to that. So, yeah, I think for us, it's more sort of having those conversations in the group and learning from each other, understanding each other's bowling."
Morkel, who previously worked with Prince at the Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) in the IPL, praised the young pacer’s smooth transition into an all-phase asset for the Indian white-ball team.
He specifically commended Prince's exceptional calmness under pressure and his execution of yorkers, which he mastered while adapting to flat domestic pitches.
"One thing about Prince for me is, obviously, the way he plays his state cricket, domestic cricket, you know, it's a flat wicket, so I can understand that he's developed a great skill in a white ball game.
"In my time with him at LSG (in the IPL), he was very quickly identified as a person who can bowl those death yorkers, and that's obviously very crucial in this format of the game.
"But what I like about him a lot is his mindset, the calmness that he brings with the ball in tight situations. If you look at the games that we've used him so far, he's come into times where it is very tough to bowl, and I think he's done that exceptionally well," the bowling coach remarked.
(With PTI Inputs)
