Naseem Shah, the young Pakistani fast bowler, hopes that Indian batsman Suryakumar Yadav will not score big against his team in future matches. Yadav is currently the top-ranked batter in the ICC T20I Rankings, but he has not been able to perform well against Pakistan. In the four matches played so far against Pakistan, Yadav has only managed to score 57 runs with his highest score being 18.
Naseem, who is just 20 years old, had dismissed Yadav once during the Asia Cup encounter last year. Yadav had tried to slog Naseem away, but instead, missed the ball and got cleaned up. In an interview with Cricwick, Naseem said, “Look, I hope he [Yadav] keeps on getting dismissed cheaply against us. He’s the best player right now. To get to the top in ICC Rankings is not easy, whether it is a batter or a bowler. He is the Number 1 player and obviously there would’ve been a lot of effort behind that. I think when you bowl against the best players, you give your best effort. And you know top players can cause a few problems for you as a bowler.”
However, Naseem also added that he always gives his best and doesn’t think too much about which batsman is coming up against him. He said, “But when you look at it from the perspective that he is a batsman and I’m a bowler and we both have a contest – if you bowl a good ball – then the chances of getting him out go up and if you bowl poorly, then he’ll take you down. So I look at it from this angle, I don’t really look that he is a Number 1 player. I’ll give my best simply.”
When asked about himself conceding no sixes in the 11-20 overs during last year’s T20 World Cup in Australia, Naseem said that his role as a fast bowler had changed slightly in that tournament. He explained, “I think you have different roles. In the Asia Cup, early on I was trying to get wickets. I think you might concede a boundary when you go for the wicket-taking option, and as a team, you accept that. In Australia, myself and Haris had changed our roles slightly. Shaheen used to go for the wicket in the first over. But in our case, we tried not to take too many chances. We tried to stop the run-flow, and one of our guys is trying to take wickets, and our job is to stop the run-flow.”
Naseem believes that playing as a team is crucial to success, and that economy rate gives more benefit to the side. “Because if you can restrict a side to 160 in 20 overs, you can easily chase down the total. When you try to stop the run-flow, hopefully you get wickets as well,” he said.
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