Sunday brought delight for Akash Deep who was retained in the India squad for the Test series against Bangladesh. With Mohammed Shami injured, there was a slot up for grabs and Akash left no stone unturned to grab the selectors’ attention. Akash was on fire in the Duleep Trophy match and bagged a nine-wicket haul to make a strong case for the squad selection. He ended up with impressive figures of 9 for 116 for India A against India B.
The highlight of Akash’s spell was the wickets of Nitish Reddy and Washington Sundar. Akash dismissed Reddy courtesy of late seam movement that squared him up to hit the top of the off stump while he set up Sundar with a few straight ones before bowling a big booming inswinger to rattle his stumps.
“The balls I bowled to Nitish Reddy [in the first innings] and Washington Sundar [in the second innings],” Akash said when asked to pick his favourite wicket from the match. “I had been bowling a lot to him [Washington] from around the wicket in the nets. He has been batting a lot against me and had got used to it. So I wanted to do something that I hadn’t done against him before.”
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Akash Deep also revealed Mohammed Shami’s advice that helped him in the Duleep Trophy match. Akash said he wanted to bring the ball back into the left-handers and turned to Shami for his input, who asked the young pacer to avoid focusing too much on it as it would automatically come over time.
“When you bowl to a left-hander from around the wicket, the ball moves naturally towards the shine,” Akash explained. “I spoke to him [Shami] about how to get the ball to come back in [with the angle]. I have seen him do that.
“He advised me not to focus too much on bringing it in. He said it will automatically come over time and when it does, it will become a wicket-taking ball. Because if it keeps going out and then you are able to bring it back in with the shine, it’s tough for batsmen. But he has cautioned me against trying it a lot. But as a bowler, if you’re able to do it, then batters will have a tendency to chase balls away as well.”
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Akah Deep made his debut for India in the Test series against England. He played one Test and bowled an impressive spell of 3/83 in the first innings.