Former Indian opener, Gautam Gambhir has showered praises on the young Indian fast bowler, Avesh Khan and advised him to not focus on the Indian Premier League (IPL) only. Avesh, who worked under Gambhir’s guidance in IPL 2022 for Lucknow Super Giants, failed to do much with the ball for Team India on Thursday in the first T20I against South Africa.

Avesh Khan was the only Indian bowler who finished the match with an economy rate below 9, however, he failed to take any wicket. Gambhir talked highly of Avesh and said he has a big heart to take the responsibility of bowling crucial overs.

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As per the quotes in News18, Gautam Gambhir said, “This bowler has a lot of talent, he has pace, a big heart to bowl the difficult overs. But I will want to see him improve further in every match. He is a young bowler, only the IPL should not be his goal, the T20 World Cup is coming ahead.”

Avesh Khan was picked over youngsters like Umran Malik and Arshdeep Singh in the playing XI for the opening match of the series. He has only played three matches for India so far and is in contention to get a place in the T20 World Cup squad later this year. Gambhir said that the 25-year-old has the hunger to learn new things and he can play all the formats for India in the future.

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Gautam Gambhir further emphasized why an extra pace helped the bowler to execute his plans in various phases of the game from powerplay to the slog overs. Former Indian opener has worked with Avesh very closely at LSG where he faced some competition within the squad as Mohsin Khan was the other fast bowler who also impressed many during his debut season of IPL.

Gautam Gambhir elaborated, “It is a good thing if one player pushes the other, then you can bring out a better performance from the other player, which you want. Your squad is a good one when every player is pushed, the other player comes and pushes you and Mohsin Khan did that exceptionally well.”