New Zealand are working on aspects of their game that they feel India may look to exploit when the two teams meet in Dubai on Sunday for the ICC Champions Trophy final, and the Kiwi plans have been laid bare by a net bowler.
India started using a four-pronged spin attack from the third game onwards in the group stage of the tournament. Incidentally, that match was against New Zealand, who could only score 205 in response to India’s 249 and succumbed to the pressure exerted by the spinners.
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To prepare for that eventuality once again, the Kiwi batters are training specifically to counter spin, which was revealed to ANI by net bowler Shashwat Tiwari.
According to the report, Tiwari said the New Zealanders are probably wary of the threat by Indian spinners, who played a key role in beating New Zealand in the group fixture as well as Australia in the semi-finals.
Mystery spinner Varun Chakravarthy took seven wickets in those two matches, including a five-for (5 for 42) against the Kiwis.
“They are preparing for left-armers,” Tiwari told ANI. “I won’t say they are struggling. Of course, our Indian team has top-class spinners, but I don’t think they will be able to cope with them.”
India have the old war horse Ravindra Jadeja, Axar Patel and Kuldeep Yadav as their three left-arm spinners. Chakravarthy and Washington Sundar are the other two spinners in the squad.
“Today, I fortunately got to bowl (in the nets),” Tiwari said further.
“At one point in time, he (name not revealed in the ANI report) asked me to bowl from 18 yards just to prepare for Ravindra Jadeja. It is because of the kind of pace he (Jadeja) has. He was expecting that kind of speed. We (net bowlers) bowled from that point, and we did it nicely. But when he realised the ball was coming too quickly, he asked me to bowl from 22 yards,” Tiwari added.
India topped Group A by winning all three matches and went on to beat Australia by four wickets in the semifinal. New Zealand, meanwhile, defeated South Africa by 50 runs in the other semifinal.
