NEW YORK: When the Indian team landed in the United States, left-arm pacer Arshdeep Singh wasn't a nail-on starter. He didn't have the best IPL season but the variety that the Punjab Kings bowler brings to the table, made the selectors and the team management choose him in the 15.
Over the last couple of weeks, Arshdeep has shaped up nicely, bowling well in the first practice match, followed by a very impressive first spell against Ireland.
The pitch, of course, has provided a lot of help, but that sometimes can lead to bowlers getting carried away. Arshdeep said that the experience that he has around him in the form of Jasprit Bumrah and others help him not to try too hard.
"The idea on pitches like these is to not get too greedy. There's Bumrah around, with all his experience, and he keeps telling me to just land the ball in the right slots and the rest will be taken care of," the 25-year-old said.
In his second spell on Wednesday though, he had to bowl 10 deliveries in one over due to four wides. Though it didn't cost India much, Arshdeep would surely like not to repeat it against Pakistan. "The ball was moving so much, so I tried scrambled seam, even that moved away," the left-armer said in his defence.
It's not that India play with a four-prong pace-attack in a T20 game every day, and it's obviously a lot about the conditions that are in play here in the US.
Arshdeep, though, doesn't mind it one bit. "When you are coming from an IPL where the par score was 240 at times, as a bowler it feels good to get a pitch like this… All I was trying to do was to finish the de liveries within the stumps so that all the options of dismissals stay open."
The Pakistan game, obviously, is now the centre of focus and the entire cricket world is looking at it with a lot of interest. Arshdeep was reminded of the fact that he had dismissed Babar Azam the last time the two teams played each other in a T20 World Cup (in Melbourne, 2022). It was followed by a demand of an encore, but the pacer didn't want to go into that.
"Let me now enjoy a day off. We will go out, see the city of New York a bit, and then hit the practice grounds again on Friday. The plans for the Pakistan game will stay the same - following the process, hitting the right length, and most importantly not thinking too much about it," Arshdeep said.
