India will begin their home season via a three-match ODI series against the West Indies at the Greenfield International Stadium on Sunday, followed by matches in Guwahati and New Chandigarh. India bowling coach Morne Morkel on Friday asserted that preparation for the 2027 Men’s ODI World Cup begins immediately through the upcoming series against the West Indies, and urged players to embrace high-pressure situations rather than waiting for the marquee tournament to step up their game.
But for me, the end of the day is that the guys who ever walk onto the field now, up until the World Cup, starting on Sunday, need to know that there’s a certain standard we want to achieve. Morkel told reporters in a press conference on Friday. We had a good team meeting and conversation today about how we would like to play this series and the standards we want to set.
“Look, for me, the main focus I reckon would be: we can talk, and you can look at different options on how you want to go about playing eleven. I want these players to put themselves under pressure, as much pressure. “I think coming to the World Cup is the biggest stage. I think it starts now with this series against West Indies, how with bowling, with back ball and in the field, how can we put ourselves under pressure? “Very excited for this series and for us, building towards something special. It’s almost a year away. “I think that will be a great goal for us if we can develop that now for guys wanting the tough situations. So if we can throw ourselves in certain situations and guys can figure out ways to play those situations and learn and take learnings about that, there will be growth, and that will help us down the line,” he added.
He also revealed that the team management held a detailed meeting to set high benchmarks and lay down the building blocks in the 50-over format for the upcoming home season. If we are maybe 30/4, who’s going to go and get that partnership and get us at 100?
You can’t decide a month or a week before the tournament now that we’re going to step things up.
