Bring it on Chris Gayle: Ravi Shastri

After Chris Gayle issued a warning of sorts saying he will target all the Indian bowlers in the semi-final, Team India director Ravi Shastri took on the Gayle challenge saying, “Bring it on. All our bowlers will target him.”

The former India skipper praised the West Indies but said the M.S. Dhoni-led unit is ready to take on any challenge. “I have said right from the beginning that they are one of the most dangerous sides in this format because they have got explosive players. They have got match winners. So, we know what we are up against. But we are up and ready as well. But this is not the knockout game. That was the last game, it was a quarter-final. This is a semi-final,” said Shastri.

India had played a string of T20 games ahead of the mega event and the success they had helped the team.

Discussing that Shastri said: “At the end of the day, you want to be consistent and you have to take it one game at a time. That’s our approach. With every T20 game we played, we knew World T20 was coming up. But we said, let’s respect the format from the very beginning and treat every game as a knockout. So, you have to win every game which means it does not matter who the opposition is.”

India were on the backfoot following a defeat against New Zealand in Nagpur in their opening game. However, Shastri said that hiccups like these are part and parcel of the T20 format. Shastri said, “In this format, you are bound to get a hiccup. There can be upsets on the way.”