Bangalore, Mar 1: England pacer Tim Bresnan today underlined the importance of an addition like Stuart Broad to an attack, which was put to the swords by a bunch of amateurs before running into a rampaging Sachin Tendulkar a couple of days back.
Broad missed the side's dramatic tie against India due to illness but an extended bowling session at the nets has almost confirmed the pacer's availability for the next match against Ireland.
Bresnan sounded excited at the prospect of having Broad back in the side but the irony here is that the pacer, despite standing out with a five-wicket haul in the high-scoring thriller at the Chinnaswamy Stadium, is not certain of a place in the playing XI for the next match.
"I think Broady just brings in that extra bounce. He is obviously a lot more experienced than me and Ajmal (Shahzad)," Bresnan said.
"He is a lot better today and I just hope to be picked in the side (even if Broad is declared fit)," he added, as if to reaffirm the importance of Broad's presence in the attack.
"Stuart's fine now. He's bowling well in the nets and he's fully fit," he said.
Bresnan is also hoping to see spearhead James Anderson hit peak form sooner than later in conditions "where there is little margin for errors".
"The Holland pitch was weary wicket. Jimmy will be just fine with his performance. He is a quality bowler and he can bounce back. I know and we are backing him. We should gel well. That's where we should improvise and gel together to perform as a unit," Bresnan, who turned 27 yesterday, said of his senior partner.
He partly attributed the listless show of the opening bowlers' to the batsmen-friendly tracks.
"It's very easy to bat there than bowl. These pitches are really, really good wickets. To my experience if we take out pace and the bounce being a bit lower, it skids onto the bat nicely. It is difficult to bowl."
Reminded about the beating the rest of the bowlers took against India, Bresnan said, "Obviously Sachin and Sehwag were going at everything. Sachin played out his skin but we were just trying to create dots and make them do mistakes. And it was not swinging a great deal and just not seaming."
And what was his mantra to success? "I tried to mix up as much as you can and try and create pressure," he said.
"In practice, we should just go out there and bowl some overs in the nets and I think we should get that height, a few inches and that extra bounce. It's going to be useful during the powerplays," Bresnan said.
Asked about playing Ireland, Bresnan said the team will target the Irish bowlers.
"We are still trying to go out there and win. It is just another World Cup game. We still need to go out there and improve our fielding and bowling.
"Everyone did not fire on Sunday, hopefully we will do that. We could see a lot of improvement from the India game. We will target the Irish bowlers whom we can hit."
Bresnan said the spirited show against India has given a boost to the three-time finalists.
"To perform against India is a massive advantage for us. We learnt a lot from that game, especially batting was exceptional.
According to Bresnan, a team should be strong in all departments to succeed in major tournaments.
"You can't win without good attack and then obviously you need runs on the board. The team which plays the best together will win."
The burly Yorkshireman also said that much talked-about UDRS confused a few English players.
"I didn't follow it nor understand. Even Ian Bell didn't understand so he started walking off. Now it makes quite sense coming down the wicket depending on the accuracy with the Eagle or Hawk-Eye." PTI
