Shardul Thakur’s stern reply to a journalist questioning India’s bowling consistency

India had a tough game against South Africa in Lucknow on October 6. In a rain-shortened 40-overs-a-side game, the home team lost by nine runs, chasing 250. After the Proteas’ innings, it looks like the Men In Blue would easily chase the target. However, that didn’t happen despite Shreyas Iyer, Sanju Samson, and Shardul Thakur‘s brilliance. Meanwhile, ahead of the second ODI, Thakur was asked about the Indian bowler’s consistency.

For context, India’s bowling has been found wanting since the Super Four round of the Asia Cup 2022. In reply, the India bowling all-rounder said that the visiting team’s bowling also struggles in India. He also pointed out South Africa’s poor bowling during the recently-concluded T20I series.

“As far as consistency goes, I think even bowlers playing for other teams tend to get hit for a lot of runs when they play in India. In the T20 series against South Africa, if you are going to criticise the bowlers you need to criticise their bowlers too. We won the series after all, their bowlers also got hit for a lot of runs.”

Before questioning someone’s consistency assess the conditions first: Shardul Thakur

The Mumbai player didn’t mince words while answering to a question on India’s bowling woes. He said that it is important to assess the condition first before questioning someone consistency.

“I feel before you ask about someone’s consistency, you should check what conditions they played in and how the pitch was. Many a times in an ODI game a team scores more than 350 runs and that is a situation where all bowlers are taken for runs. But are the opposition also able to score runs. Whatever matches happen here are never one sided. Regardless of how the pitch, we have always given a good fight. We may have lost one or two matches here and there but we have won maximum matches. So I feel there is a lot of consistency within this team,” said Thakur.