Former Indian wicket-keeper Dinesh Karthik believes Vaibhav Sooryavanshi would be tested against short-pitch deliveries and he needs to work on the same amid the T20I series against England. After Sooryavanshi was stumped on his T20I debut, he received a bumper from his Rajasthan Royals teammate Jofra Archer in the second game at Trent Bridge, Nottingham on Tuesday.
After scoring 13 runs, Sooryavanshi got a faint edge to keeper, Jos Buttler, when he was looking to hit the bouncer to the leg side.
Sooryavanshi was dismissed after scoring 14 runs on his debut and thus it hasn’t been a great start to his T20I career.
Dinesh Karthik said on Sky Sports Cricket, “England’s aggressive bowling and hitting hard lengths meant India had to be good off the backfoot, which they weren’t. Vaibhav Suryavanshi, this is going to come a lot at him – the short ball at the helmet. What are his answers for that? Ishan Kishan and Shreyas Iyer were looking for short balls and hence not fully committed to their shots. So it is technical on that front.”
Karthik urged Sooryavanshi to understand how to ride the pace and get inside the line of the ball in a T20I game.
“Even if he hit the ball he got for six, the next ball would have been the same. So how does he deal with that? He needs to understand how to ride the pace and get inside the line of the ball. In T20 cricket, you get only one bumper and you need to be good enough to deal with it.”
Karthik said Shreyas Iyer would need to deliver in the next two games as senior players aren’t there in the team.
“There aren’t any senior players in the team like a Bumrah, Hardik or Suryakumar Yadav. Even Sanju Samson is dropped. So who’s the senior player? Hence, the conversations inside the dressing room should be spearheaded by Gambhir and Shreyas Iyer. But Iyer would know he has walked into a mega territory. Being made the captain of a World Cup-winning team is huge pressure,” said Karthik (via the aforementioned source).
“But the next two games are a great opportunity for Shreyas Iyer to stand up as a leader and to be respected. Use the next two games to let your bat talk and get the runs. But also if you drive the team forward, it’ll give huge belief in your own ability.”
The fourth T20I between England and India will be played at Bristol, County Ground on Thursday.
