'Our death bowling is a big issue' - Saba Karim opens up on India’s death bowling woes

Former India selector Saba Karim has expressed that India's ongoing underwhelming bowling performance in the death overs could have an adverse effect on their upcoming T20 World Cup campaign.

With the eighth edition of the T20 World Cup about to commence in less than two weeks, India will first lock horns with Pakistan in the mega event. While the Men in Blue are high on confidence with the performances put up in the Australia and the on-going South Africa T20I series, the side still needs to strike a balance.

Saba believes the death bowling performance in recent outings could eventually hamper the team’s chances of winning the title.

Saba Karim expresses concern on India’s death bowling

Concerned with the performance in the death overs, Saba explained his stance while speaking to Sports18.

“However much he (Rohit Sharma) tries to deny it and try to give confidence to the bowlers, our death bowling is a big issue. I think it is posing a lot of headaches to the team management and to Rohit Sharma. It seems like whenever we try and figure out one problem or we try and plug one hole, there are several others that come up.

We were doing pretty well in terms of trying to pick wickets in the powerplay, we have been able to stop that and suddenly we have this issue of leaking far too many runs in the death overs. So, they need to work this out as soon as possible,” said Karim.

Saba added that the services of Mohammed Shami can bring a lot of venom in the bowling attack. Moreover, with the absence of Jasprit Bumrah, India will need to quickly resolve the death bowling issue as they look pretty vulnerable. Shami relished a successful season in the IPL 2022 finishing with 20 wickets from 16 matches. However, his comeback slowed down after testing positive for COVID-19 during the home series against Australia.