India's bowling coach Bharat Arun commends 'all-rounder' Shardul Thakur, rues missing Hardik Pandya
India’s bowling coach Bharat Arun has spoken very highly of Shardul Thakur who can offer an all-around dimension to the Indian Test team. However, he said that deciding on his future with respect to his presence in the team and finding more such players is up to the selector.
“It is more of a selectors’ job to find them and then we can develop those all-rounders. Shardul has proved he can be an all-rounder. What he did in Australia was fabulous,” Arun said during the interaction facilitated by Ironwood Education Company.
Shardul Thakur has come into the reckoning for his dual performances in the Brisbane Test against Australia where he scored 67 runs with the bat to bail India out of trouble in the first innings and scalped seven wickets across both innings to give India a chance of winning the game and the series.
Subsequently, he has been included in the Indian squad for the tour of England where they are slated to play six Test matches starting with the World Test Championship final against New Zealand and then a five-match Test series against hosts England.
India did not select either of Hardik Pandya and Bhuvneshwar Kumar, who could have performed in both disciplines.
Arun also rated Pandya’s ability very highly and said India would not find such talents so easily. He lamented the back injury and the subsequent surgery he suffered meant that the all-rounder had to give up on bowling.
“I wish you could just wish and develop bowlers like that. Hardik is an outstanding talent, but unfortunately, he had to undergo a back operation and then it’s not very easy to come back after that. He bowled against England, I thought he did a really good job. But, to sustain that we need to manage him well and build on his strength,” he added.
India will depart for the UK in the first week of June and play New Zealand in the WTC final from June 18. The team will meet England in the Test series starting in the first week of August.
