Indian bowling coach Morne Morkel expressed happiness with the presence of uncapped pacers Prince Yadav and Gurnoor Brar in the training session, saying that on his first impression of these two bowlers, he felt as if they both were a part of the team for five years, pointing out that they showed no nervousness.
In the absence of workhorses like Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Siraj, Team India could witness a fresh pace attack taking the field against Afghanistan during the first ODI of the three-match series at Dharamsala on Saturday. Morkel, a legendary South African pacer, has been left impressed by the way they have gone about their training with a lot of energy and skill on display.
“My first impressions it is it was sort of, I almost felt they had been part of the squad for five years. I saw no nervousness in their face, although you know, I can imagine coming into the squad, they would be pretty, pretty, pretty nervous, but the way they have gone about training, the energy they trained with was very, very nice and good to see in terms of their skills,” he said.
He also said that he could notice that both bowlers have put in a lot of hard work, noting that “they were on the money” during their training.
“This sort of makes my life a bit easier. From here on, we will develop their game, have conversations about how we can play that middle phase and with the power plays and the death, how we can do that better, but definitely on first impressions, very happy with what we saw as a group. Now it is just excitement, getting them ready, giving them the best opportunity to go out and perform, when they get that call,” he signed off.
Prince was the top wicket-taker in the IPL for Lucknow Super Giants (LSG), taking 16 wickets in 14 matches at an average of 28.68, with best figures of 3/32. While Gurnoor did not feature in the IPL for the Gujarat Titans (GT), his six-foot-four-inch frame, ability to extract bounce and taking wickets make him a fine prospect. In 18 first-class matches, he has taken 52 wickets at an average of 27.30, with best figures of 5/14, including three four-fers and a five-wicket haul. In nine List-A matches, he has taken 12 wickets at an average of 39.00, with best figures of 4/57.
Squads:
India Squad: Rohit Sharma, Shubman Gill(c), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Ishan Kishan, Shreyas Iyer, KL Rahul(w), Washington Sundar, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Harsh Dubey, Kuldeep Yadav, Arshdeep Singh, Gurnoor Brar, Prasidh Krishna, Prince Yadav
Afghanistan Squad: Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Ibrahim Zadran, Sediqullah Atal, Hashmatullah Shahidi(c), Rahmat Shah, Ikram Alikhil(w), Azmatullah Omarzai, Mohammad Nabi, Rashid Khan, Nangeyalia Kharoti, AM Ghazanfar, Bilal Sami, Darwish Rasooli, Fareed Ahmad Malik, Zia Ur Rahman Sharifi.