While it is the best fast bowling era in Indian cricket history, Avesh Khan is another youngster who has impressed in the domestic cricket. Recently the young pacer claimed that he feels fortunate to get the crucial advice from MS Dhoni and Rahul Dravid.
The 21-year-old right-arm pacer Avesh Khan made his first-class debut almost four years ago. He has played nine first-class matches where he has picked up 23 wickets.
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During the 2018 Asia Cup in UAE in this September, Avesh travelled Dubai to assist the national players as a net bowler. Most recently, he was selected in the Indian Board President’s XI against Windies during a two-day warm-up game at Vadodara, where he picked up four wickets in an innings as he had a bowling figure of 17-5-60-4.
In a recent talk with The Indian Express, Avesh revealed how the Indian wicketkeeper-batsman and the former Indian captain, MS Dhoni helped him to improve his bowling skills.
He told, “I was bowling with the conventional grips for outswing and inswing. Mahi Bhai was watching and he told me to bowl with a scrambled seam on wickets that didn’t offer much help to fast bowlers. He explained it thoroughly that on docile pitches if the ball lands on the seam there would be little seam movement. But if leather hits the deck, the ball might stop a bit and the batsman could mistime and hit it in the air.
“He (Dhoni) also said on pitches that didn’t assist fast bowlers, focus should be on dismissals like bowled, leg-before and catches in cover and mid-wicket. Caught behind or catches to slips would rarely happen. He advised me to hit consistently on a particular area and the importance of bowling dots balls to put pressure on the batsmen.”
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Avesh was the highest wicket-taker (12 wickets) for India U-19 during the 2016 ICC U-19 Cricket World Cup in Bangladesh that India U-19 finished as the runner-up. He feels fortunate to get the crucial advice from the former Indian captain Rahul Dravid, the head coach of the Indian U-19 cricket team.
He said on that, “We were fortunate to have Rahul sir. The real education was the meeting that he had with us after we lost the final. ‘This is not a very big thing. In fact, hard work begins now,’ Rahul sir had said. The meeting taught us about the importance of putting things in perspective.”
Avesh claims that the pace is his strength, which he will never compromise and now he is working to improve the other bowling skills.
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The young right-arm pacer added, “Pace is my strength and I will never compromise on that. Now I’m working hard on my yorkers, bouncers and slower deliveries. These are important weapons in the IPL,”
