Indian national cricket team’s 22-year-old right-arm pacer Harshit Rana has credited stand-in captain Jasprit Bumrah and former captain Virat Kohli for his success in the ongoing first Test of the five-match series against the Australian national cricket team.
Harshit Rana will take part in his first Test match for India at the Perth Stadium in the prominent Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2024-25.
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Harshit Rana chosen as India’s third pacer for Perth Test
Harshit Rana was chosen as the third pace bowling option by the Indian team management for the first match of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2024-25.
Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Siraj, being the two seniors, were automatically selected in the playing XI, and the battle was between Harshit Rana, Prasidh Krishna and Akash Deep for the third seamer’s spot.
Although Krishna and Akash had previous experience in Test cricket, the Indian team management decided to go for Harshit and the youngster was awarded his debut cap.
He looked good with the ball and bowled tight lines and lengths. In the first innings, Rana took a 3-wicket haul, including the wicket of India’s foe Travis Head. In total, he bowled 15.2 overs and conceded 48 runs.
Jassi bhai (Jasprit Bumrah) kept telling me what to do and Virat bhai also gave me advice – Harshit Rana
In a press conference after the end of play on Day 2, the 22-year-old revealed that Bumrah and Kohli kept giving him advice, which helped him a lot.
“Jassi bhai (Jasprit Bumrah) kept telling me what to do and Virat bhai also gave me advice. These things help a lot. Jassi Bhai or Virat bhai, whoever came, kept giving me suggestions on what to do in bowling. Where to put the ball? ball, where not to put it. So that gave me a different confidence that ‘yes, they’re telling me I’ll do well,'” Rana said.
He also admitted that Jasprit Bumrah’s dominant performance with the ball at the start made things easier for him. Rana said:
“His spell made things easier for me. I calmed down. Jassi bhaiya always creates pressure from one end, and that makes it easier for the bowler at the other end.”
The idea was to attack the stumps and I got the wicket – Harshit Rana
Explosive batsman Travis Head has played several sensational knocks against India and there was a possibility of him troubling India again in the Perth Test.
However, Harshit Rana did not let that happen and in the first ball of the 12th over, he rattled the batsman’s stumps with a brilliant delivery.
Meanwhile, Rana revealed that he was planning to attack the batsman’s stumps, and that brought him success.
“The idea was to attack the stumps and I got the wicket. In the team meeting we made some plans and I stuck to them,” Harshit told the media.
While talking about his debut, the pacer revealed that the team management informed him of the news a day before the Test match and he became quite emotional.
“I met the day before the Test and I did cry after giving a speech at the meeting,” he said.