We have reached a point where we need specialist pacers for formats: Paras Mhambre

NCA bowling coach Paras Mhambrey has been Rahul Dravid’s trusted man over the past six years. Mhambrey who is in charge of India Under-19 players, India ‘A’ and is a bowling coach at the NCA has opened up on the certain challenges of grooming young talent and the way ahead for domestic cricket.

Due to the ongoing pandemic, domestic cricket in India had been greatly affected. Now, as Indian cricket is all raring to resume domestic cricket and junior cricket, Mhambrey spoke about the challenges to groom all format bowlers. With the ever-increasing competition, making it to the Indian team is a tough nut to break.

Also, playing across formats requires a high level of fitness. Mhambrey thus asserted about the workload the players have to manage if they are playing all three formats. He also stated that their aim would be to prepare the players for two formats to start with. He touched upon the example of Bumrah and said that the pacer initially played in the shorter formats before making it into the Test side.

“We have kind of reached a point where we need specialist pacers for formats. We will be happy to lay a path maybe not for all three formats, but two formats to start with. You have someone like Bumrah right now. He did play the longer format but for a long while, it was only the shorter format. But a lot of work goes on him off the field. If you have guys who are really ready to put in the hard yards to go through the workloads, I think you then can create an opportunity,” Paras Mhambrey said as reported by TOI.

We don’t have a lot of fast bowling all-rounders at grassroots: Paras Mhambrey

All-rounders are a great asset for any team. When the top-order of the side experiences a collapse, the tail-enders who can put up a good show with the bat come to the fore. Recently in the England-India Test series, India’s tail-enders exuded some great performances with the bat. However, when it comes to fast bowling all-rounders, Mhambrey said that there aren’t many of them at the grass-root level and that state associations should work for the same.

“It’s always going to be hard. We don’t have them at the grassroots. At the U19 level, we had a couple of them but they couldn’t make it. We need to bring them under one umbrella and focus on them. Even the state associations need to work here,” Mhambrey added.