Cricket News: Is Arshdeep Singh, the fast left-arm bowler India was searching

The current Indian side is full of youngsters without Jasprit Bumrah, Yuzvendra Chahal and Virat Kohli. Of all the young players, Arshdeep Singh, who has been knocking on the doors of Indian selectors with his impressive IPL stints, gave an exceptional performance in 1st T20I against West Indies. 

Ever since the Indian careers of Ashish Nehra, Zaheer Khan, RP Singh and Irfan Pathan ended, the national side has struggled to find a left-arm pacer who can fill a regular spot. India saw a few left-arm pacers from IPL: Jaydev Unadkat, Khaleel Ahmed, T Natarajan and Chetan Sakariya. Given chances on international platforms, none of them could make their chances count except for T Natarajan. 

T Natarajan impressed everyone with his journey from being a net bowler to a star in the test series against Australia. He looked like a great filler of that space, scalping 13 wickets in 7 international games and 38 wickets in 35 IPL matches. But his knee injury made him miss further chances and thus making the spot vulnerable again. 

Chetan Sakariya rose to the limelight with his impressive outing with Rajasthan Royals in 2021, which grabbed him a debut in 2021 against Sri Lanka. The young lad impressed everyone with his 4.25 economy spell in one ODI played but went expensive for 9.27 economy in T20I. Thus, he returned with three wickets from the tour. 

Hoping for his better performance in IPL 2022, Irfan Pathan said, "I know Sakariya is a bit rusty at the moment, but if he performs in the IPL, he will be an option. Left is always right!". But he got only three games to play in the presence of another experienced left-arm pacer Khaleel Ahmed. This deprived him of the opportunity to revive his game and get to the sight of selectors for international chances.

With such vulnerability and T20 World Cup, India desperately needed a game-changing left-arm pacer. And in such times, Arshdeep Singh's consistent impressive death over bowling in two IPL seasons became hard to leave unnoticed. Given a chance to debut in a match against England and then in the West Indies, the bowler bowled with an impressive economy of 5.60 and took four wickets in two T20Is. 

Former Pakistan skipper Danish Kaneria commented, "Arshdeep has the art, and he uses his mind while bowling. He bowls sensibly and knows how to take wickets. He can be a fantastic option for the Indian team for [the] T20 World Cup and maybe for Asia Cup as well. [The] Asia Cup will be held in Dubai and he can be successful being a left-arm pacer."

It will be challenging to see how Rohit Sharma and Rahul Dravid make space for this young talent in the squad's presence of other mighty pacers.