Former Indian pacer Zaheer Khan was impressed by the performance of Indian bowlers in the first T20I against Sri Lanka. The trio of Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Jasprit Bumrah and Harshal Patel made every effort to get anywhere close to the Indian total of 199 in Lucknow.
Bhuvneshwar Kumar gave India the perfect initiation by dismissing Pathum Nissanka in the first over. Sri Lanka then lost wickets at regular intervals and as India had an edge in the contest. Jasprit Bumrah and Harshal Patel then close out the game going for just 29 off their five overs.
Appreciating Jaspreet and Harshal, Zaheer Khan 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,”
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“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,” he added.
