India seamer Arshdeep Singh considers it a “blessing” to share the dressing room with the legendary Virat Kohli, despite the latter’s eight-ball duck in the first ODI, which India lost by seven wickets
to Australia.
Arshdeep is confident that Kohli, a master of 50-over cricket, will bounce back and score runs in the remaining two matches of the series.
“He has played more than 300 matches for India, so form is just a word for him,” Arshdeep remarked at the post-match press conference. “He knows how to get going. It is always like a blessing to be in the same dressing room with him, and going forward I feel there’ll be a lot of runs for him in this series as well.”
When asked about Kohli’s feelings on playing just one format, Arshdeep remained cautious. “….talking about the format he is playing, he has mastered this one. So I don’t know how he feels about it. I will ask him about his feelings, and maybe tell you in the next press conference.”
Shubman As Captain?
The left-arm seamer, still new to Shubman Gill’s style of white-ball captaincy, expects the young skipper to be a bowlers’ captain like his predecessors Kohli and Rohit Sharma.
Since Arshdeep has yet to play Test cricket and this was Gill’s first game as ODI skipper, he refrained from comparing the new captain with the two experienced players. “I have played very less ODIs, so I can’t tell the difference yet, but I would say both of them were proper bowlers’ captains. They gave you proper freedom and even today Shubman, he backed whatever plans we had, and he said, bowl freely to your plans and just enjoy the moment,” Arshdeep said about his state-mate, with whom he has shared the dressing room since their age-group days.
“We knew we didn’t have that many runs, but we just wanted to express ourselves, that was his message.”
Arshdeep mentioned that the Optus Stadium track was good, but the frequent rain interruptions affected the batters’ concentration. “If you spend time on this wicket, then the runs were coming, but it was very important to spend time on the wicket whoever was set. We saw the partnership between KL and Axar,” he said. “But with frequent stoppages, it became very difficult for the batter to maintain concentration. And the credit also goes to Australian bowlers. They bowled in very good areas, they got a lot of help from the wicket,” he added.
(With inputs from Agencies)
