Jasprit Bumrah and Harshal Patel featured together in the first T20I of the series against Sri Lanka which India won comfortably. Former India pacer Zaheer Khan feels that the two fast bowlers will complement each other well and can do wonders for the country as the team prepares for T20 World Cup.
India defeated Sri Lanka in the series opener of the T20I series at the Ekana Stadium in Lucknow by 62 runs to take the lead in the three-match series. With ten T20I wins on the trot, India recorded their longest winning streak yet. In the series against Sri Lanka, many players returned to the side after a break. Jasprit Bumrah was one such player who did not feature in the West Indies series.
With Jasprit Bumrah being named the vice-captain in the series, he has added responsibilities on his shoulders. For a long-time, the fast bowler has been India’s spearhead and with Harshal Patel giving brilliant performances in the matches that he has played so far it will be interesting to see how the two pacers go about it. Former India pacer Zaheer Khan praised both fast bowlers and feels that the two can complement each other well.
While speaking to Cricbuzz the former India pacer said, “Bumrah and Harshal will be a complementing pair… purely because when you talk about Bumrah, you talk about that awkward angle and fast yorkers. To add to that, he’s got that beautiful variation of bowling slower ones. When you look at Harshal, his success story has been around people looking to attack. When batters are coming hard at him, he feels more comfortable and chances of him taking a wicket are on the higher side”.
Harshal Patel had a terrific IPL 2021 on the back of which he was selected to play for the national side. Patel has the skill of bowling some unplayable slower ones and also has variations that deceive the batsmen consistently. On the other hand, Bumrah is one of the best in the world and his yorkers have often troubled even the best in the business.
Zaheer Khan during the chat elaborated why he feels Harshal will be more dangerous when paired with Bumrah, “It will work in his favour when he has someone like Bumrah bowling from the other end. Batters would want to take more chances against Harshal than against Bumrah… and it would work in Harshal’s favour. Bumrah is gonna make it very difficult for batters to score runs freely and that’s gonna give an edge to Harshal to use his variations. I think this pair at the death overs will complement each other”.
