India pacer Jasprit Bumrah on Sunday said star spinner Ravichandran Ashwin adds a lot of value to the team but whether his presence had made a difference against New Zealand is difficult to judge following the team’s defeat. Trent Boult and Ish Sodhi starred with the ball before Daryl Mitchell smashed 49 off 35 to help New Zealand defeat India by eight wickets on Sunday in the ongoing T20 World Cup. Bumrah said in hindsight numerous questions can be answered but during the game, there was dew in the second innings which made things a little tough for India.
“In hindsight, we can say a lot of things. In hindsight we could have wished to score a lot more runs or got, lost more wickets. Obviously, he is an experienced bowler, he adds a lot of value in our bowling attack whenever he comes.
“But in hindsight, it is very difficult as I told you there is dew in second innings and when the balls don’t grip the options becomes very rare and very little. In hindsight you may say he might have made a difference but it is too difficult to judge right now,” Bumrah said while replying to a query from ANI in the post-match press conference. New Zealand produced a stunning bowling display as India batsmen struggled on the crease. Bumrah said India wanted to have extra runs which made the side go on the field with an attacking mindset.
“I think as a batting unit what we were trying to do is we know in the second innings dew does play a massive role so we tried to give us a cushion to have some extra runs,” said Bumrah.
“In doing that, we played a lot of attacking shots and that didn’t come off today as we know that in second innings batting does get easier,” he added. Both India and New Zealand had lost their opening Super 12s matches to Pakistan and came into this one knowing that defeat would leave their hopes of reaching the semi-final hanging by a thread.
“In sports, there are good days and there are bad days. I try not to get very high when good days happen and not very low when low (bad) days happen. Try to stay strong and move forward. That’s what I can say,” Bumrah signed off.