Former India cricketer Laxman Sivaramakrishnan has batted for wrist spinners Kuldeep Yadav and Yuzvendra Chahal’s inclusion in the ODI team.
Team India haven't fielded Kuldeep and Chahal regularly together since the 2019 World Cup even though they have proved their worth with match-winning performances time and again.
Both the spinners are also not part of the three-match ODI series against Bangladesh, starting December 4 in Dhaka.
"When I played the World Championship of Cricket in 1985, Sunil Gavaskar gave me the license and said, 'go bowl ten overs, even if you give 50-55 runs'. That was very expensive at that point in time and he said, 'I want two-three-four wickets from you. Ravi (Shastri) will bowl with you in tandem and he will keep it tight and create that pressure. I want you to bowl for four wickets'," Sivaramakrishnan told IANS in an exclusive chat.
"Between mine and Ravi's ten overs, he would say that between 20 overs from both of you, I want 100 runs and four or five wickets. I worked to break the backbone of the opposition and that happened. It was a plan, and it happened from match number one till the finals. Apart from finals, we got every team all out under 50 overs. You need good planning, and skills and need to trust a cricketer to get you wickets. No matter how many runs you give these days, batsmen will chase it."
With less than 12 months to go for the ODI World Cup in India, Sivaramakrishnan wants the Men in Blue to field their strongest possible playing XI in all the matches leading up to the showpiece tournament.
"Every victory will give you confidence, the combination will settle down automatically and your processes can go out of the window. You will find a team that sets in and is high on confidence and in a match-winning habit. Any habit you have to form over a period of time and the winning habit has to be formed over a period of time. The process and all those things can happen over in the nets."
"When you are playing an international match, you have to play your best side, the best combination for the conditions that are there and you have to play to win. When you are going to the World Cup and are going to play 20 One-day Internationals before that, you can't win every one of them, that I agree."
"If you have 80% or 15 victories out of 20, and that too good victories, with people like Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, KL Rahul coming into good form, and in the bowling department, Bumrah makes a comeback at some stage and he gets into form because what you do in a match situation is totally different from nets."
(With IANS inputs)
