Indian speedster Bhuvneshwar Kumar is out of IPL because of hip and thigh muscle injury. Ishant Sharma has faced a similar fate due to a rib injury. Hardik Pandya is unable to bowl in IPL as he has not recovered fully from back injury. But the management of the Mumbai Indians say that Hardik was not made to bowl just as a precaution.
Now the question is whether these injured players — Bhuvneshwar, Ishant and Hardik- will be till the Gavaskar-Border Trophy to be held in December in Australia. Did they withdraw from IPL as a precaution? But the real question is what the pace battery of Team India during this Australia tour will be like.
Who will be the fourth pacer with Jasprit Bumrah, Umesh Yadav and Mohammed Shami? Team India has several alternatives in One Day and T-20 formats but there is dearth of options in tests. In such a situation, Navdeep Saini has come up as a strong contender. Though Navdeep has got only four wickets in the eight matches of this IPL, he has emerged as a reliable bowler in his RCB team.
He fully knows how to contain the batsmen. He has good speed, skill to bounce and above all he has a good deal of patience. He has been seen bowling long spells in domestic cricket. He could prove to be an ideal bowler in test cricket by virtue of all these specialties. However, there was some change noticed in the bowling action of Navdeep Saini. But this change was under the supervision of former pacer Zaheer Khan.
Zaheer has high expectations from Saini. He can bowl yorkers more accurately now and this action is helping him accelerate the speed. However, he did not lend that speed to the ball as he had done the last time. But forcing a batsman to play and make a mistake is his greatest skill. Playing tests has been a dream of Navdeep Saini.
But this dream has not been fulfilled as of now. He was once included in the team India as a replacement of Mohammed Shami against Afghanistan but he could not get place in the last playing XI. He got a place in the test team during the New Zealand tour but he remained seated on the bench there too. Jasprit Bumrah, Umesh Yadav and Mohammad Shami got a chance to play in the team.
In one match, Ishant Sharma was in the team, but then Umesh did not get a chance. Navdeep Saini has got five wickets so far in as many one-day matches. He has clinched 13 wickets in 10 T-20I matches and 125 wickets in 45 first class matches. He gave a superb performance by taking 34 wickets in 8 matches of Ranji Trophy of 2017-19.
Next year, he proved to be the highest wicket-taker bowler on behalf of Delhi by clinching 16 wickets in Vijay Hazare Trophy. Let’s hope Navdeep will rise to the expectations if he gets a chance in Test cricket because he has the calibre and stamina to play in Tests.