Great to have them - Morne Morkel optimistic of Indian youngsters delivering against Australia

The Indian cricket team will attract a lot of eyeballs from tomorrow as they will take on Australia for a five-match Test series, with the first match beginning in Perth. With so much to look forward to, Indian bowling coach Morne Morkel shared some insight into how he has been heavily impressed with the kind of cricket that the squad's young guns have to offer.

Talking at the pre-match presser, Morne Morkel said, “It's great to have them (Harshit Rana and Prasidh Krishna) around in the squad. I think they add a lot of variation to their attack, especially Harshit, who bowls at a good pace, finds a way to also extract some bounce out of the surface.”

He further added, “It's their first tour, Prasidh had a bit of experience with India A tour where he had a bit of game time, but for Harshit it's a bit of an unknown. My message to him was just, when I toured my first time here, playing in Australia, an intimidating place, to listen to the stories, take their advice. But for me it's just staying in your own bubble and finding those experiences, work them out for yourself.”

Talking about another youngster, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Morkel said, “[Reddy] is one of the young guys that we've mentioned, he's got that sort of batting, all-round ability. He'll be a guy that can sort of hold that one end up first. He hits the bat a little bit harder than you think. So in these sort of conditions where there might be a little bit of seam movement up front, especially the first couple of days. He'll be a very accurate wicket-to-wicket style of bowler. It's a lovely opportunity for him to hold that allrounder spot.”

He concluded by stating, “Any team in the world always wanted the allrounder to take that load off your fast bowlers, just to give them an extra bit of breathing time. So how we use him, how Jasprit is going to use him, with maybe the spinner, to give himself, whoever's going to be the other quicks, time to catch their breath a little bit is going to be important. He's a guy that is a player you can keep your eye on in this series."