T20 World Cup 2022: Lalchand Rajput reveals his fast bowling contenders for India in the tournament

Former Indian cricketer Lalchand Rajput revealed his fast bowling contenders for India in the upcoming T20 World Cup 2022. One of the talking points in recent times has been the emergence of pace bowling in India and through the ten-team IPL 2022, a lot of names have popped up. The selection committee is expected to have a big headache while picking up the squad for the T20 World Cup 2022 for Australia, especially in the fast bowling department.

In the previous T20 World Cup 2021 in UAE, India went in with Jasprit Bumrah, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, and Mohammed Shami as the fast bowling trio alongside Shardul Thakur as the fourth option. The move wasn’t quite effective and ever since then there has been a constant search for pace bowling which can rattle the opponents. At the moment, it is available in plenty in the ongoing IPL 2022 season and they will have to be groomed in meantime for the ICC tournament this year.

Rajput directly went for his first choice pick as Umran Malik who has been the find of the season in terms of pace bowling section. The speedster from Jammu and Kashmir picked up a five-wicket haul already and bowled the fastest ball of the season with a 157 Kmph delivery which turned out to be the second-fastest in IPL history overall. With 15 wickets in 11 games, Malik has got the X factor to deliver with crucial wickets and he is likely to get the nod for the T20 World Cup.

Lalchand Rajput pick Bumrah and Shami as the second and third choices

Rajput revealed his second choice to be Jasprit Bumrah and felt that the duo can be a lethal combination for the Indian side in terms of speed and skills. Bumrah with his experience now is expected to lead the Indian pace attack and is an upcoming leader among the group as well. Mohammed Shami was the third bowling option for Rajput and the experienced seamer has been quite good with the new ball for the Gujarat Titans this season.

For the fourth bowling option, Rajput felt that there could be a lot of discussion between the likes of Kuldeep Sen, Yash Dayal, Mukesh Choudhary, Akash Deep, Natarajan, Avesh Khan, and stressed the powerplay bowling of Umesh Yadav as well. In the end, he rounded up the fourth option to Natarajan, Sen and Dayal while adding Bhuvneshwar to the list of the first three options as well.