‘Important to see Shivam Dube can bowl four overs’: India bowling coach ahead of Asia Cup 2025

Multi-skilled and all-rounders remain a key part of India’s T20 setup, and bowling coach Morne Morkel feels the likes of Shivam Dube can bowl four overs, which gives the Indian team a cushion when it comes to bowling options, as they prepare themselves for the T20 World Cup 2026.

“For me, it’s always important to see a guy like Shivam that can bowl four overs,” Morkel told Indian mediapersons on the sidelines of the team’s net session at the ICC Academy.

“I’m always pushing for all-rounders to work hard on both skills. Sometimes guys can get a little bit naughty in practice and focus just on one. Here in this environment, we want to leave no stone unturned,” the former Proteas fast bowler said.

Morkel feels that additional bowling options can provide India with a cushion when the front options have gone for runs. 

“On the day, we’re going to need somebody to do the work for us. Conditions might favour him more than somebody else. For us, it’s about being professional.

“It’s about taking responsibility of putting quality work in there on the day when you’re called upon by Surya to do the job. You’ve to be ready to do that.”

During their Champions Trophy triumph, India raised the eyebrows of many as they went with four specialist spinners in Kuldeep Yadav, Varun Chakravarthy, Axar Patel and Ravindra Jadeja and played majority of them. But that may not be the case in the Asia Cup as pitches in Dubaiu and Abu Dhabi are greener and are likely to have dew. 

“Again, we need to go and look at the wicket. I think when the Champions Trophy was played at that time, there was a lot of cricket on the surfaces here and they looked a little bit tired,” Morkel said.

“So again, tonight we’ll have a first look at the surface and I believe there’s quite a bit of a grass covering on the square. So we’ll have a good idea going into the first game in terms of what is sort of a better way to go, but in terms of planning at the moment, we’re covering all bases and then we’ll make a decision obviously on match day. “

Morkel opened up on Kuldeep Yadav missing out on all the games in the Test series against England and has empathy for him.

“I think he’s a very professional athlete. His attitude since England, where he received hardly any game time, he’s still the guy that put the overs in,” Morkel said.

“And for me, Kuldeep, like I said, he’s bowled a lot of overs in his career. He knows what to do to get himself ready for T20 cricket, white-ball cricket. And like I said, we can control only what we can control now, and that is when we do train now and when we have our sessions, that it’s focused, that there’s a purpose behind it and we have goals.”

“We set those goals out and from there, it’s up to them to go out and lead with the ball,” he concluded.