"Who would not like to be a part of the World Cup squad?" - Ravi Bishnoi on his hopes of getting back into the Indian T20I side
Indian wrist-spinner Ravi Bishnoi endured a rough patch between September 2022 to August 2023, when he didn't get picked for the Men in Blue in the shortest format. Quite a few eyebrows were raised as despite impressive performances in the IPL, Bishnoi didn't feature in India's T20 World Cup 2022 squad.
The right-arm wrist spinner is now determined to turn things around, and he hopes to be a part of the upcoming T20 World Cup. Ravi Bishnoi was quoted as saying by TOI:
“Who would not like to be a part of the World Cup squad? That's my dream and definitely a good show in the IPL can help. But first thing first, focus is on giving my best for LSG. Let's see how it goes here."
Bishnoi also talked about playing under KL Rahul at LSG, and how the latter has a knack for helping players out with his sound advice.
“At LSG, it's KL bhai whom I always approach for suggestions," he said. "Be it during, before or after the IPL, I always reach out to him for help. He backs me a lot and gives me the freedom to express myself. He often tells me that with 50 odd IPL games under my belt I am a senior player now and should take my own calls. If you feel that something has to be done a certain way, do it!, he says."
"I made my IPL debut for Punjab under him and have never played under any other captain in the league," Bishnoi added. "This adds to the ease of communicating things freely to him."
Yashasvi Jaiswal has motivated me to play Test cricket: Ravi Bishnoi
Ravi Bishnoi, Tilak Varma, Dhruv Jurel, and Yashasvi Jaiswal were all a part of India's 2020 U19 World Cup batch that reached the final in South Africa. Bishnoi is chuffed to bits to see his teammates realize their dream of playing for the senior team.
The wrist-spinner was also thrilled to see the way Jaiswal performed recently in the Test series against England and claimed that even he wanted to play red-ball cricket for India.
On this, Bishnoi stated:
"They have fought hard with life and it's good to see that the boys I played with at the U19 level have made it to the senior team as well. I must admit that Yashasvi has now motivated me to play test cricket."
Jaiswal scored a staggering 712 runs in the Test series including a couple of double hundreds. He also had 625 runs in the IPL 2023 season and like Ravi Bishnoi, will look at IPL 2014 as an opportunity to seal his T20 World Cup spot.
Editor's note: A previous version of this article had a misquoted line from Ravi Bishnoi. That portion of the content has been redacted.