As someone closely associated with the IPL, Andy Flower is keenly looking forward to how the young Indian team will fare against Zimbabwe in the T20I series starting in Harare on Saturday.
“This second-tier Indian team – and I am not disparaging – is the next best bunch of Indian cricketers,” Flower told Sportstar over the phone from Harare. “It is going to be fascinating to watch. “Because I am an IPL coach at the moment, it is very interesting for me to get up, close and personal watching them play, and getting to know some of them.”
It was a different Indian team that won the T20 World Cup in the Caribbean (and the United States) a few days ago. Ahead of the final, Flower, who had coached England to victory in the T20 World Cup in 2010, predicted that India would edge South Africa.
“I thought the big difference would be Jasprit Bumrah and Kuldeep Yadav,” he said. “I was surprised the spinners didn’t do better in that match, but Bumrah was outstanding again. He is a different gravy, isn’t he? He is a class apart from all the other seamers in world cricket, in the white-ball game.”
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The former Zimbabwe captain, and one of the finest wicketkeeper-batters of all time who averaged 51.54 in Tests, said he wasn’t surprised that Rahul Dravid did not continue as the Indian coach. “He has been on the road for a while as a coach and he also worked at the NCA for several years and that would have benefited Indian cricket hugely,” he said. “And he has done an outstanding job with the national team. In everything that he has taken on, he has always handled himself with grace, dignity and integrity.”
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