"After pitching what's going to happen even I don't know"- Shardul Thakur's hilarious explanation ahead of IND vs AUS 2023 World Cup match

Shardul Thakur has been a genuine wicket-taker for India in ODIs and one of his go-to deliveries, especially when the pitch is flat, has been the scrambled-seam or wobbled-seam deliveries.

With such variations, Thakur has an uncanny ability to find wickets out of absolute nowhere. This mysterious ability also led the fans to give him the nickname 'Lord Thakur'. He himself claimed that even he didn't have a clue what the scambled-seam ball would do once it pitched.

Speaking to former West Indies pacer Ian Bishop in a video posted by ICC, here's what Shardul Thakur had to say:

"I don't know. I just hold it like this and bowl it. I don't do much, happens whatever happens (smiles). It is difficult to get the ball to reverse in ODI cricket. So you have to use these tactics, maybe bowl cross-seam or scrambled seam. After pitching what's going to happen even I don't know. The batter is always guessing, I am always guessing, so probably leave it to the hands of God (laughs)."

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Shardul Thakur on his batting

India have been very keen on having batting depth in their line-up and have entrusted Shardul Thakur with the responsibility of providing some crucial runs down the order.

Thakur agreed that he didn't have much game time in the middle of late as far as his batting is concerned. However, he is satisfied with the efforts he put in during the optional training session on Saturday. On this, he stated:

"It's good I am enjoying now. Coming into the tournament I didn't have enough game time to bat so trying to utilize all the time here. Today was an optional session so probably today was the time for me to push in the batting."

It will be interesting to see if India go in with Ravichandran Ashwin instead of Thakur with their opening match of the 2023 World Cup being played against Australia in Chennai on Sunday, October 8.