Dubai: India captain Rohit Sharma hailed young left-arm pacer Arshdeep Singh’s confidence and fearlessness in bowling the death overs despite the side ending up on the losing side in both of its Super Four matches against Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
In both of India’s losses, which came with a ball to spare, Arshdeep had been assigned to bowl two of his four overs in the death overs phase.
With his pin-point yorkers and ability to hold his nerves in under-pressure situations, Arshdeep has been impressive in Asia Cup 2022. In 10 T20Is till now, Arshdeep has picked 13 wickets at an economy rate of 7.60 and took the player of the series award in India’s 4-1 triumph over the West Indies in August.
“Even (on Tuesday) today, he bowled pretty well, (especially in) those last two overs. He is a very confident lad, that’s why he is here. He has been with the team ahead of a lot of guys who are sitting back home because he’s clear in his mind, a very confident lad. I’ve not seen many people like that in their early days of playing for India.
“He’s very confident and wants to do well. He’s quite hungry for success for the team, which is a good sign for me as captain. Even Rahul (Dravid, head coach) bhai will tell you, we’re very happy with how he takes his game, and how approaches his game,” said Rohit in post-match press conference.
Rohit’s backing for Arshdeep comes after the youngster was trolled heavily on social media sites for his dropped catch of Asif Ali at short third man in the thrilling India-Pakistan match on Sunday.
Though Arshdeep took out Ali with a pin-point yorker in the final over, he had hit 16 runs in eight balls and Pakistan went on to win the match. The social media backlash of Arshdeep’s dropped catch turned into a vicious one when trolls began to target him on the basis of his religion.
“Honestly, guys don’t look too much into social media, there’s too much crap happening there. A few losses here and there, few games here and there, one drop catch…I don’t think we look too much into it. Yes, he himself was disappointed because it was a catch that could’ve been taken.”
“But again if you saw his confidence in that final over, he nailed that yorker pretty well to get Asif Ali out. That shows if he was down and out, when you’re mentally not there, the execution doesn’t happen. But in his case, he came out confident to execute. In fact, he just ran into his place and took the ball, because he wanted that over to be bowled by him,” concluded Rohit.
–IANS