Indian bowling coach Morne Morkel with Gautam Gambhir (PTI Image)
New Delhi: As defending champions India prepare to face England in the T20 World Cup semi-final at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai, bowling coach Morne Morkel says the dew can play a big role.He explained that conditions in Wankhede can be difficult. “I think the dew is always a big worry. But that’s again something you can’t control: the pitching. I think there’s always an extra bit of bounce at Wankhede. Players can trust the bounce and the drive across the line which can also, as a ballplayer, get you into the game. I felt or feel the margins here are a lot smaller. The ball is moving; it’s a very small ground,” Morne Morkel told reporters.
India reach the final session before the T20 World Cup final
He added that bowlers should remain brave despite the risks.
“So you just have to fight for it, stay in the moment and compete for every ball. Because, as I said, a batsman’s strength can also be his weakness on the surface. So sometimes it’s not too much to defend and keep attacking because chances may come,” he added.Head coach Gautam Gambhir also spoke about how the lack of dew during this tournament has affected India’s batting compared to the previous bilateral series.
“During the bilateral series as well, there was a lot of dew in the second innings as well, but we haven’t seen a lot of dew during this World Cup campaign. So I felt it wasn’t just about the strike rate, it was also about reading the game properly and reading the situation as well. That’s something that will be important, and the players did that really well,” Gambhir said.“Even today, I saw they were chasing 195. We never felt like we were out of the game. Never in 20 overs did we feel like the chase was getting away from us. So the players kept control. Yes, there were times in bilateral matches where we could have chased the target in 16 or 17 overs, but this is the World Cup. The pressure is different, the quality is different too.”India reached the semi-finals after wins over Zimbabwe and West Indies, despite a setback against South Africa in the Super Eight.