Indian All-rounder Shardul Thakur opened up in the post-match interview, The 31-year-old said “Even if they don’t pick me for the World Cup, it will be their call, I can’t do much.” He continued to say “Whenever I play the game whether it’s bowling or batting or fielding at the end of the day I should be happy that I have made an effort and my performance should be impactful whichever department it is.”
World Cup coming up, how important was this series and what were some of the objectives of the series?
“I think with World Cup coming up every game you play is important from the teams perspective, whether it’s the batting department or the bowling or for that Feilding department, so you are going to judge yourself you are going to score some marks for yourself, also the team management is going to look at you as players there will be few players who will be looking at selection as well, so i think for us individually also all the game we play before the World Cup are important no doubt about it, as far as learning if you consider the learnings out of the series i think its about developing your game, i mean how the team needs you to perform in a particular situations, even in previous match when we lost some wickets and when we went in whats our mindset and is it going to help us, we will play the world cup so there are lots of things you challenge yourself mentally also in these kind of series you judge yourself”
We see you come on and off you come for Test, ODI and T20 and play, There is not much attention on you unlike others in Indian cricket there is so much focus on them, How is that?
“Honestly, I never thought if there was attention on me or not if someone was looking at me or not, but you see Indian team has a very good bench strength.”
“There will be times when the pitch suits the spinners then more spinners will play if the pitch supports the pacers there my role also comes because if you see from past many years we play with deep batting line-up, so as an all-rounder who bats in lower order my job for team also becomes important because we have seen in a longer chase or if you want to put a higher score in the first innings and if you try to accelarate you are going to loose one or two wickets here and there, if the number 8 and 9 can contribute with number 6 or 7 batter batting there or whoevever for that matter, if anyone is set and has batted deep from the top order so the role is very crucial.”
“I feel whenever when I get an opportunity I just try to contribute toward the team’s success that’s my thought process.”
“Whenever I play the game whether it’s bowling or batting or fielding at the end of the day I should be happy that I have made an effort and my performance should be impactful whichever department it is.”
“I don’t think like- I have to play for my spot, I’m not that kind of player if I play with that kind of mentality then I will not be able to play”.
“Even if they don’t pick me for the World Cup, it will be their call, I can’t do much.”
“It would be wrong of me to think that I need to play for my place and that I will do my job and leave its not like that, what the team needs and what the match situation I always try to perform according to that even though if I get success or not, that is one thing I keep repeating – no matter what, I’ll try to play for the team success and make an impact,” he added.
“I missed just one series – the home series against Sri Lanka. Not sure why I wasn’t picked for that. But I’ve been a part of all the one-day teams in the last two years. I think the team is expecting from me something that’s why I’m a part of the team every time.”
“Whenever I get a chance to play, I remind myself that the team has confidence in me, and that’s why they have given me the chance. Even in this series, I got an opportunity and was very happy that I could pick eight wickets. We all wait for this kind of opportunity for a long time sometimes our performance is good and sometimes its not, but we get the results of our hard work ”.