The recently concluded ODI series in the West Indies, which India won 2-1, has done wonders for Shardul Thakur as the pacer has put forward a strong claim to be included in the squad for the upcoming Asia Cup 2023 and the main tournament: World Cup 2023 later in the year at home.
Shardul Thakur finished as the leading wicket-taker of the series with 8 scalps in the 17.3 overs he bowled in the 3 outings, managing a brilliant bowling average of only 11.62, striking every 13 deliveries.
Many fans and experts have over the years expressed doubts over Shardul Thakur’s place in the ODI side because of his tendency to go expensive at times and not having high pace as bowlers like Siraj and Shami and Umran.
However, Shardul Thakur compensates for his lack of high pace with street smarts, exhibiting shrewdness with his lines, and moreover with his lengths. As he showed against the West Indies, the Palghar-born pacer has shelved out the yorker and full-length deliveries to adopt to hard length and short length balls – which also is something that quality pacers around the world who bowl in the middle-overs phase have done.
For example, in England’s 2019 World Cup winning team, seamer Liam Plunkett excelled at bowling hard lengths and bouncers in the middle-overs, something which helped him and England significantly in their success.
This stat indicates why Shardul Thakur is key to India’s World Cup plans
While Shardul Thakur may not have the status of being a certain fixture in India’s line-up yet, in the past few years, he’s done well in the middle-overs with his good, hard, and short lengths. As this piece of stat will trll you.
Since 2020, in ODIs, Shardul Thakur has the highest number of wickets in the middle overs for any pacer in the world! He’s taken 39 wickets in the middle-overs period since 2020.
Behind Thakur is Alzarri Joseph with 31 wickets in the middle phase, followed by Ireland’s Josh Little, and Bangladesh’s Taskin Ahmed.
This is a terrific achievement for Thakur given the number of high-quality fast bowlers around the world. This is also a major boost for the Indian team management who have backed Shardul Thakur despite the outside clamour of his trolling and mocking at times.
