All-rounder Shardul Thakur has unique ways to get among the wickets. A long hop, a cross seam, a knuckle ball, slower bouncer, half volley on leg-stump, anything will do for him if there is an entry in the wickets column. Don’t worry about his economy rate of 6.15 in the 42 ODIs that he has played so far in his career. Why captains like him in the playing XI is because of the 63 wickets he has picked in those 42 ODIs at a strike-rate of 27.8. Also, in the 37 ODIs that he has played since the 2019 World Cup, he is the top Indian wicket-taker with 57 scalps, along with Kuldeep Yadav.
Not for nothing is he called the ‘man with a golden arm’.
