India’s bowling coach Paras Mhambrey accepts that it is difficult to leave out a bowler of Ravichandran Ashwin’s calibre. But he says that the team chooses the XI depending on the nature of the pitch. In the last two matches, the team thought that a third spinner was not required. Mhambrey also praises Ashwin for taking omission in his stride and doing his best as a team man.
The following are excerpts of Mhambrey’s interaction with the media in Pune, a day before the India-Bangladesh match.
Q: Any thoughts about the team composition?
Mhambrey: It’s a really tough one. You have a world-class bowler (Ashwin) amongst your 15 and are not getting an opportunity to give him a game. That’s a tough call and you have to take that tough call. But for us, the conversation has always been team-centric and so have been the decisions. We go with the side that is the best, depending on what surface we’re playing on.
In that sense, he (Ashwin) has been a great lad. He understands that he’s a great team guy. I’ve never seen him grumpy. I haven’t seen him complaining. Having someone like that, a team guy in a team helps. Credit goes to him. Even after so many years, he’s there, he wants to do well for the team, he turns up every practice session, goes through the rigorous grinds and he keeps bowling. I must compliment that.
Q: There is no guarantee whether Shakib Al Hasan will play tomorrow. But going by stats, Indian batters have been vulnerable against left-arm spin compared to off-spin or leg-spin. Why is that so and is there any strategy to counter Shakib?
Mhambrey: When you play as a batter, some time or somewhere, you will come up against someone. If you look at match-ups, there’ll be things like he’s weak against this, he’s good against that. We know Shakib is a good player. He has done well for Bangladesh. He is a champion player. He bats for the team, bowls well, bowls in the power play, and you got to give that to him.
But for us, it doesn’t really matter. For us, it’s about what we do in terms of preparation and execution of the plans. I think if you execute your plans to the maximum, you’re going to do well. And I think that’s all that we’re focusing on. Our execution of plans and that’s it, nothing else.
Q: The middle overs have been kind of a swing period where teams have collapsed a couple of times at least. Is that giving a cue to our batting unit to go hard in the first few overs, like Rohit is doing? Is that the best time to accumulate runs and set the tempo for the rest of the innings?
Mhambrey: Sometimes it happens. It’s good, especially on a surface where a new ball comes nicely onto the bat. It’s centre-oriented, in terms of what kind of surface you’re playing on. It will behave differently in different phases. In the last few games, it got a little slower. It wasn’t coming on to the bat as well as in the earlier period.
But yeah, sometimes you’ll have to take those opportunities. And I think the best phase is when there is a restriction on the number of fielders outside the 30-yard circle. That’s the best time. Sometimes, it’s not a special strategy that we’re going in with, after looking at what happened in the earlier games. That’s our approach.