Indian pacer Khaleel Ahmed found it hard to control the ball on his first tour to New Zealand. Though the conditions support fast bowling the small boundaries don’t allow bowlers any scope of error. The same things happened with Khaleel, who went for runs throughout the series didn’t look effective with the ball.
He played single One-Day International and all three T20 Internationals on this tour but his rhythm with the ball was invisible. However, India’s stand-in captain Rohit Sharma backed him throughout the series. Khaleed revealed in his latest interview with Hindustan Times that it helped him to focus on the match.
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HT quoted Khaleel as saying “Rohit bhai spoke to me after the first match. He discussed where I was going wrong and explained to me the perspective of a batsman when he comes to the crease in a T20 game. He spoke on how I should prepare to take on the batsmen who are looking to attack from the word go. He spoke about the mindset of different batsmen and also how I should set specific fields for each opposition batsman. He really guided me a lot and most importantly asked me to bowl bindaas (carefree) and back my strength.”
The 21-year old, who has been tipped to end India’s long wait for a left-arm pacer, also admitted that he was nervous after the poor outing in the first T20I. But the advice from Rohit helped him stop overthinking and do well on the field.
“After the first game, I was a bit nervous since it didn’t go as per plan. But after speaking to Rohit bhai, I gained in confidence and realized that it was important to not overthink and bowl to my strength. So I followed the advice and bowled bindaas (carefree). I thought that there was no point being over cautious in my approach as T20 is anyway a batsman’s game. Backed myself and that helped as I started to pitch the slower ones and the yorkers in the right areas,” he said.
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India’s next international assignment is against Australia. The two-match T20I series will kick off from February 24.
