I just backed by length and bowling style – Gurnoor Brar on his dominant performance against New Zealand

The Indian fast bowlers came together in crafting a solid display in Auckland as India seized a comfortable win to go 1-0 up in the ODI series against New Zealand.

India went in with four fast bowlers featuring the likes of Anshul Kamboj, Gurnoor Brar, Arshdeep Singh and Auqib Nabi. The trio of Kamboj, Brar and Arshdeep claimed nine wickets amongst them while Nabi kept the lid on New Zealand’s scoring rate.

Gurnoor Brar registered figures of 9.2-0-44-3, complementing the others perfectly. In a video released by BCCI, Brar opened up about the conditions in Auckland while highlighting how the quartet of Indian pacers came together in forcing a systematic dismantling of the hosts in Auckland.

Shedding light on the conditions, Brar said, “The atmosphere here is very good. The wickets are pretty good. We had practiced here for four or five days earlier, so the wicket was similar. I just backed by length and bowling style and these are the results.”

Decoding the blueprint of his attack, Brar stated, “The game plan was that the straight boundary was a bit short, in fact the six that I conceded in the first over, that was a slightly fullish ball. So my thought was that, if I would pull my length back a bit, it will be hard to hit over square leg or fine leg. I was discussing with Shubman, Arshdeep and Anshul. They had bowled before on the wicket. They had suggested that if we could stick to the hard length, I could get much better bounce because of my height.”

He concluded by talking about the four pacers coming together, adding, “All four of us got opportunity together. Obviously, Arshdeep has played a lot more games and is the most experienced T20 bowler in India right now. My thought was that if I am here to bowl, I need to back myself and win the match for this team. Seeing this combined effort made it even more enjoyable. Even though Auqib didn’t get a wicket, he bowled brilliantly. Anshul bowled a brilliant spell, I got wickets and Arshdeep bowled his spell. It feels great when four fast bowlers play for a shared purpose and achieve it. Hopefully we will keep on doing this going forward.”