Lucknow, Oct. 5 -- India's bowling coach Morne Morkel on Monday said teenage sensation Vaibhav Sooryavanshi needs to spend more time with the team even if he is not playing which will only be "great" for the game.
Young Sooryavanshi was part of the Asian Games gold medal winning Indian team and played all the matches, but failed to fire.
And in all likelihood, India will go with Abhishek Sharma and Sanju Samson as openers in the first T20 International against West Indies here on Tuesday.
"We all know the talent of Vaibhav. The more time he spends in this environment with the quality players, the more time he trains at this standard, will only be great for his cricket," Morkel said at the pre-match press conference.
"And if he's not getting that game time, he's still on a bus, in the dugout, in the hotel with guys with a lot of experience. With him sharing that sort of dressing room and talking to guys, or just actually watching how the guys go through their processes and how they set up innings, will be key for him."
"If you put guys in the right environment and they can ask the right questions and they can observe. So I always challenge them, and for any young player, if he gets game time or if that game time is a little limited, it's still our job to make sure that these guys learn, they grow, and they ask questions."
Morkel, however, refrained from hinting at the possible playing eleven for Tuesday's game.
"I mean that's the combination (Abhishek and Sooryavanshi at the top) they felt for them at the Asian Games. We'll work out tonight what is the best combination for us going into this series. Will they adapt, will they float, will they make any changes, I quite honestly can't give that answer now," he said.
"...the red flag or the problem might be, our guys are travelling back after the Asian Games. Some of the guys only arrived a couple of days ago, so jet lag, getting over the journey. Once we are up and running and we get the series going, we are all really looking forward to it."
Morkel said the main goal for India is to win games and create a strong bench strength to fall back upon.
Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Millennium Post.