Bowling Coach Bharat Arun Predicts When Team India Can Resume Playing International Cricket 

Team India's bowling coach Bharat Arun said the pain of losing World Cup still stings.

Photo: AFP

New Delhi: Indian cricket team fans suffered a major heartbreak when New Zealand's star fielder Martin Guptill came up with a fiery throw to dislodge wicket-keeper batsman MS Dhoni's stumps in the 2019 World Cup. Ultimately, India suffered a loss and was knocked out in the semi-final of the mega-event. Team India's bowling coach Bharat Arun said that for a team that considers winning the World Cup an 'obsession', the pain of losing still stings. "Yes, the World Cup loss still hurts us, it's still hurting us and we'll probably go all out to see that we leave no stone unturned in our preparation to make sure that we do exceptionally well in the World Cup," Bharat Arun told FanCode in the latest episode of Lockdown But Not Out. "To win a World Cup, I think we need to really plan well and how far we execute our plan." Coach Arun also spoke about the team's road to the resumption of cricket post lockdown. "Partially now the lockdown is lifted but inter-state travel is going to be a problem. But again, what the players are going to do is, they will be going to their respective hometown, the grounds that are available, they would do their running and they would also combine it with skill work. And when they are free to travel, that is when we'd all be meeting but again keeping the social distancing in mind, we'd also be working with them in batches." "It'd take us at least 6-8 weeks for us to play international matches, whereby we'd be first working on the skill, and fitness in the camps and then we'll progress onto match simulations, and hopefully the BCCI can organise a tournament just before we play the international matches, that would be great for us." Talking about the current bowling unit, he said, "I'm not worried about the bowlers because they've had ample time in the last 2 months, to work on strength and their fitness. Very rarely does an international cricketer, especially our bowlers, would get this kind of time to work on their fitness. Also, it is a wonderful opportunity for them to get over the little niggles, that they may have got over the long season."