Resting World Cup-Bound Fast Bowlers in IPL 2019 Wrong Thought Process - Ashish Nehra

Former Indian National Cricket team fast bowler Ashish Nehra has opined that India should not rest their fast bowlers during the upcoming edition of Indian Premier League (IPL) ahead of Cricket World Cup 2019. Meanwhile, Nehra, who is now the head coach of Royal Challengers Bangalore has insisted that match practice is necessary for the pacers.

IPL 2019 will commence from March 23 and will run until the first or the second week of May while the World Cup in England will kick off from May 30. However, there has been a consideration that skipper Virat Kohli has asked the management to rest the pacer in the IPL.

“… I think it is a wrong thought-process to rest the World Cup-bound fast bowlers during the IPL. Lohey ko zang lag jaata hai [Iron gets rusted]. No matter how much training you do, you need match practice. If a bowler himself feels he needs rest then that is a different matter. In my view, they should play 8-10 IPL games. It will be helpful for the World Cup,” Nehra told The Mumbai Mirror.

“You can get injured any time, not only during the IPL. In the 2011 World Cup, I got injured in the semi-final against Pakistan. You can get injured in practice too. Or even in the first match of the World Cup. We will have a couple of weeks between the IPL and the World Cup, which is sufficient to recover from niggles,” he added.

We didn’t have good backups

In addition to, Ashish Nehra also pointed out that current India pace attack is finding a lot of success due to the availability of backup options. The current crop of fast bowlers, in recent years, have done significantly well.

“We did not have good backups. Only two-three good bowlers. There was talent though. RP Singh, Sreesanth, Munaf Patel were good Test bowlers for a while. I was struggling with injuries. Ajit Agarkar was doing well in patches. The likes of Debasis Mohanty, Tinu Yohannan, Harvinder Singh came in, but were not able to establish themselves, so there was flux,” Nehra concluded.