'Rahul Tewatia, Shahrukh Khan have skills but need to be far more consistent' - Saba Karim on developing new finishers for India

Even though Hardik Pandya and Dinesh Karthik have proven themselves in international cricket, the former selector Saba Karim wants India to develop young finishers in the form of Rahul Tewatia and Shahrukh Khan. Now, even though Tewatia has done reasonably well in the IPL, Shahrukh is someone who’s yet to show his worth on the biggest stage.

The 54-year-old believes that the team should groom these youngsters and they should be put in tough situations as only then they’ll learn how to handle pressure in pressure situations. Now, it’s not a secret that team India has failed to cope with pressure multiple times in the past. This is one of the reasons behind India’s failure in mega tournaments. Thus, Karim wants India to develop these youngsters and train them to become quality players for international cricket.

“I think the time has come now to develop such young cricketers. Because you see, in the IPL most of the teams prefer to have an overseas batsman at that position. So, you can have David Miller you have Tim David you have Rovman Powell which means that still the young talent who are coming through from the Indian domestic circuit, they’re still not equipped enough to handle the pressure and to deliver on a consistent basis,” said Karim exclusively on SPORTS18’s daily sports news show ‘SPORTS OVER THE TOP’.
 
“Both the names that you’ve taken Shahrukh Khan and Rahul Tewatia, they’re young. They do have the skill and they need to be far more consistent. But to do that, we need to put some more hours behind them so that they’re able to come up to that level of international quality,” said Karim on the same show.

I would love to see Ravi Bishnoi play all three formats: Saba Karim

The decision of keeping Ravi Bishnoi out (standby) of the T20 World Cup was a bold decision taken by the management. He was given just one match in the Asia Cup and the spinner picked up one wicket. He never got any other opportunity to prove himself before being dropped from the squad.

Saba Karim believes that Bishnoi can be a player for all three formats. Normally, fans don’t see a lot of leg-spinners playing in Test cricket and the former selector believes that the 22-year-old can change that.

“I would love to see him play in all three formats and somehow for some inexplicable reason, we don’t see any leg spinner in the test match format these days. But I would like to see the change coming in here and Ravi Bishnoi is one such candidate who can play all three formats and do well for India,” Karim added.