Musheer Khan played a monumental role in rescuing India B from 94/7 and taking them to safer shores by the end of day one against India A in the ongoing Duleep Trophy.
Musheer remained unbeaten on 105 by the end of the day's play and stitched a 108-run stand for the eighth wicket alongside Navdeep Saini.
Musheer pulled off a herculean task in trying and testing conditions at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru on Thursday (September 5) and had to make a few technical adjustments to his game during the course of his innings.
“I wanted to play as many balls as possible without thinking too much about runs. I wanted to bat the whole day, and I was taking it session by session. The ball was swinging and cutting when I came to bat,” Musheer was quoted as saying in the post-day press meet by PTI.
“So, I was trying to play the ball as close to my body as possible and was looking to avoid those risky shots. I knew runs would eventually come,” he added.
While Musheer kept his calm and thwarted India A's attack patiently, he got a lot of confidence by watching his partner Navdeep Saini bat with a lot of composure at the other end and therefore he could show more belief in him.
“When wickets were falling at the other end, I told myself to play intelligently and look for a partnership. Then Saini bhai gave me a lot of confidence saying he will play whether it is two balls or six balls in an over, and just keep faith in him.
“He was also able to match my thinking and approach while batting. But generally, I was trying to defend the first three or four balls and then take a single,” he mentioned.
Musheer effectively handled the star left-arm wrist spinner Kuldeep Yadav and even scored two beautiful boundaries down the ground against him. He revealed that insightful conversation with his teammate Rishabh Pant helped him prepare well against the wily wrist spinner.
“This is the second time I am playing Kuldeep bhai. We have some experienced players in our side like Shubman bhai and Rishabh bhai who told me which of Kuldeep bhai’s balls will be effective and off which ones I can score runs. But once I got set, batting became easy on this wicket,” said Musheer.
