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The Indian cricket team is set to return to action with their home T20I series against South Africa, with a new-look side taking on the Proteas at the Arun Jaitley Stadium in Delhi on Thursday, June 10. With regulars Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli and Jaspit Bumrah rested for the upcoming series, the likes of Hardik Pandya, Yuzvendra Chahal and Kuldeep Yadav will make their national team returns after commendable performances in the recently-concluded Indian Premier League (IPL) 2022 season.
Among the selected players are two young up-and-coming pacers in Arshdeep Singh and Umran Malik. During India's first training session ahead of their much-awaited first T20I match, both the bowlers got a chance to prove their mettle to the head coach Rahul Dravid in the nets.
Although Umran got an extended spell during the session, it was his colleague from Punjab Kings (PBKS) Arshdeep Singh who was the more impressive of the two in the nets, showing all to see his special yorker skills. But with veteran pacer Bhuvaneshwar Kumar, along with latest debutants Harshal Patel and Avesh Khan ahead of the duo in the pecking order, it is unlikely that they will be used in the first match of the series.
Umran was seen bowling to Delhi Capitals (DC) skipper Rishabh Pant, with bowling coach Paras Mhambrey keeping a close eye on the pace express who regularly clocked speeds above 150 kmph in IPL 2022. Pant did not go easy on Umran, smashing him as much as he could even as Umran bowled as fast as he could.
Arshdeep's training session was comparatively shorter than the rest, which might be a sign that the Punjab bowler might be ahead of Umran on the bowler's list. Usually, fast bowlers in extreme conditions don't go all out in training sessions and just try to bowl enough to hit the rhythm. This is proven by the fact that Bhuvneshwar bowled for hardly 15 minutes in the entire session.
The same went for Harshal Patel, who was also rested on the day along with two sure-shot first XI candidates, Yuzvendra Chahal and Hardik Pandya.
Arshdeep first bowled a short spell and then had a session under Mhambrey, when he was seen practicing the blockhole deliveries. The bowling coach kept his baseball mitt on the front crease, exactly on the middle stump line for the yorker, and an energy drink bottle around the tramline for the wide yorker.
Arshdeep was supposed to hit the two 'props' as part of a match simulation to practice the yorker-length deliveries. "Theek hai? (alright)," he would ask Mhambrey who would tell him to focus more on line than length. This is an indication that although we might not see him facing the Proteas in the first few games, there is a high chance that Arshdeep will make his India debut in the upcoming series.
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