A Jasprit Bumrah yorker had hit Vijay Shankar's toe during training on Wednesday. With opener Shikhar Dhawan already out with a fractured thumb, the Indian team management would have hoped that it wasn't anything serious and the pace spearhead confirmed the same while addressing the media on Thursday.
"We don’t, obviously, want to injure the batsmen but sometimes when you play in the nets, nobody tells the batsmen not to hit, so they hit as well. It was not the aim. It was unfortunate that he (Vijay Shankar) got hit but he is okay, he’s fine. But you have to do all your preparations. You have to practice all your deliveries. The best preparation for me is to bowl to batsmen. So I try to do all of that. Sometimes, it happens, you get unfortunate, you get hit but that’s part and parcel of the game. You’re not focusing about all of those things. You are just focusing on what you have to do in your preparation. What the batsmen want to do, they do all of that," Bumrah told the media.
The pacer feels it is really unfortunate that Dhawan has to miss the rest of the tournament after the thumb injury, but added that the team needed to move forward.
Jasprit Bumrah's got no mercy... even for his own batsmen. He struck Vijay Shankar with a yorker yesterday pic.twitter.com/2EAlg7gXHP
— ESPNcricinfo (@ESPNcricinfo) June 20, 2019
"It is unfortunate that he (Dhawan) is out of the World Cup. He played a really good innings against Australia. We are a good side and we have to move forward," he said.
Bumrah said that the conditions are not very helpful in England. "The wickets are flat and we are taking that into consideration and working accordingly. You have to focus on accuracy and after that if you get some help that is good," he revealed.
Commenting on the preparation that the fast bowlers undergo ahead of the games, he said: "The best preparation for me is to bowl and that is what I am doing. We are not taking any team lightly. We are focusing on all the teams in the same manner."
(With IANS inputs)