'How can you not select a bowler with best economy rate in IPL?' - Salman Butt questions Mohammed Siraj's exclusion from India's T20 WC squad

Former Pakistan opener Salman Butt lashed out at the Indian selectors for not naming a genuine pacer in the T20 World Cup squad. He questioned the exclusion of Mohammed Siraj, who had an impressive season for the Royal Challengers Bangalore in 2021, giving runs at an economy rate of 6.79.

Butt said that without such a pace proposition in the team, no team would think to go into the attack mode twice, which is what India have suffered so far in the tournament, as they slipped to their second consecutive loss in the Super12s. Worryingly, Indian bowlers have managed to pick only two wickets in as many games thus far, losing against Pakistan by 10 wickets followed by the recent eight-wicket loss against New Zealand.

“I think India didn’t select their best combination. How can you not select a player with the best economy rate in the IPL? And the fastest bowling speed in terms of the England series? Yes, Siraj. Then you have many fast bowlers,” Butt said on hos YouTube channel.

“There should have been some surprising pace element in the team. When the opposition knows that there’s no bowler who can bowl over 145kph, or threaten with bouncers and yorkers then your bowling can’t create the wicket-taking impact. You are not going to make people think twice before they attack you because the pace isn’t there,” he added.

Against New Zealand, India were restricted to a below-par total of 110/7 before the opponents chased it down comfortably with eight wickets and 5.3 overs to spare. Daryl Mitchell fell just one short of a half-century, while Martin Guptill was the first wicket to fall, both accounted by Jasprit Bumrah. Although, no other bowler could get any success. Highlighting how difficult it was to defend that kind of a score, Butt said:

“How many times have we seen such bowling sets defend low totals? It’s difficult unless you have specialist wicket-takers in there. When there’s a low total, [opposition] batters will have to make a lot of mistakes, you can’t induce them easily. Today India should have bowled and set their fields like Test matches but this bowling isn’t suited to that.”