NEW DELHI: As their spin quartet, especially Varun Chakravarthy, kept his team under continual pressure during the Champions Trophy encounter in Dubai, New Zealand pacer Matt Henry noted that India’s expertise with the conditions helped them choose a competent bowling unit.
In their 44-run triumph over the Kiwis in the final Group A encounter on Sunday, India, who are playing all of their matches in Dubai, fielded Chakravarthy, Kuldeep Yadav, Ravindra Jadeja, and Axar Patel.
“I think, obviously, the way to have four frontline spinners was a really effective way to play. I think having that luxury of knowing (conditions)…they played to the conditions beautifully. That was probably the challenge for us,” Henry said in the post-match press conference.
“We knew that they were going to play the four spinners. They bowled beautifully. They read the situation and the conditions well. Yeah, unfortunately, we couldn’t get across the line.”
Among the four spinners, Chakravarthy was the most impressive, collecting five wickets (5/42) to help India advance to the semifinals against Australia.
“He (Chakravarthy) bowled beautifully, didn’t he? I think he showed his skill, the way he turned the ball both ways, he could bowl pace. They were able to put us under pressure right throughout,” Henry said.
“He extracted turn and pace and he just, to be on a match winning performance like that, to be able to create pressure and I suppose that’s what they did in tandem.”
Henry, though, was thrilled to see the pacers from New Zealand put India under pressure right away, and he hopes to do the same against South Africa in the semifinals.
Before Shreyas Iyer and Axar Patel pulled off a comeback, India were languishing at 30 for three.
“I think the key is adapting. It’s something we talk about as a fast-bowling group – reading conditions and trying to get the opposition to take tough options (to score) and we managed to do that even in the power play here,” he said.
“I think if we can keep doing that, we can take wickets. If you can take wickets throughout, especially throughout that middle, it makes a massive difference at the back end.
“Moving forward, we’ll take our learning from here and we’ll apply them back in Lahore (vs SA).”
