Majority of emerging talents are from interior districts of country: Cricket junior selection committee chairman
CHENNAI: Former India off-spinner and junior selection committee chairman Aashish Kapoor is pleased with India’s emerging talent pool. He is impressed with their progression and feels that India’s search for the next crop of fast-bowling all-rounders will be successful in the near future.
Kapoor, who lives in New Delhi, had come to Chennai in March after watching an U-23 final to be with his mother. In the the city since then, the 49-year-old talked to this daily about the abundance of cricketing talent in North India, and the potential rise of next generation’s bowlers from Rajasthan.
Excerpts:
Your assessment of India’s age-group talent? We have abundance in all departments. We have excellent batsmen coming up, and quite a few good keepers. What is important is that these youngsters are bubbling with energy and raring to go. The majority of these talents are from the interiors district of the country, north India in particular.
Has the junior selection committee lived up to the expectations of being a feeder to the national side? It has. If you look at the last four years, quite a few have gone on to India and India A. Prithvi Shaw, Shubman Gill, Shivam Mavi (India A). Not everyone from U-19 is going to play for India. So even if two, three make the grade immediately, and some go to the senior team in three, four years, that’s a job well done.
Any particular players who impressed you? I was impressed by Kamlesh Nagarkoti. He’s very good and nippy. Unfortunate that he’s had too many injuries. Quite a few from his batch impressed us. From the current batch, one guy who’ll go places is Yashasvi Jaiswal. Many have rated the likes of Ravi Bishnoi, Dhruv Jurel and Priyam Garg as good prospects... They’re all good players.
They have a lot to prove. They’ve just taken the first step on the ladder and done it well. They have all the ammunition to play good cricket. So it has to be seen as to how they shape up, not get distracted and remain focused.
But there aren’t many fast-bowling all-rounder names in the junior circuit... It is a tough job. Many take the easy way and become a batsman or a bowler. You need to be extremely talented to be one, and also have the stamina for it.
Have you identified any? Divyansh Joshi. He dislocated his shoulder in the triangular series before the World Cup. He was the only one we had this year. But we have had several spin-bowling all-rounders. Atharva Ankolekar is one.
In the last three years, we’ve tried so many guys, but we couldn’t find one for that standard. Now there are quite a few whom we’ve tested.
In the next World Cup, you will have two or three of them. That’s our goal. We have been watching and asking for feedback on players who are even middle-level all-rounders, so that we can groom them.
How about the U-17 bunch? A few from Andhra are really good. Nitish Reddy, a pace-bowling all-rounder, is a very good prospect. He’s played for Andhra. He’s scored 1,200-odd runs as an opener, and taken nearly 40 wickets.
That’s tremendous for anyone. He struggled a bit at the U-19 level, which is a level higher. But he has age on his side. We were not in a hurry to play him in this World Cup. We want him to have two more U-19 years to develop.
How about pacers at the U-19, U-23 level? There’s a good crop, with the likes of Kartik Tyagi. Jharkhand’s Sushant Mishra is a fine left-arm pacer. He’s played first-class cricket. Quite a few from Rajasthan. Kamlesh has been very impressive.
There’re quite a left-arm pacers from Rajasthan who are really good. For some reason, many bowlers from there, be they pacers or spinners, are highly talented.
How do you rate the current lot of spinners in comparison to their seniors? Between the last two World Cups, the boys have been playing a lot of triangulars and limited-over cricket. To be a good spinner, you need to play four-day games on a regular basis, and bowl 30, 40 overs in various conditions. Many in the current bunch have not bowled that much in the longer format. But Bishnoi looks good for it.
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