Had told Nehra, you pick whoever you want, but let me pick Noor: Ashish Kapoor

Noor Ahmad has done nothing wrong since taking over the mantle of the second spinner in the Gujarat Titans line-up and has helped Rashid Khan massively. Against Rajasthan Royals on Friday, the duo joined hands to carry a demolition work, and that took Titans bowling coach Ashish Kapoor on a trip of its own.

Kapoor first met Noor Ahmed when he was the India U19 selector and saw the prodigious left-arm spinner in a match against India U19. He young Afghan spinner exuded unmatched confidence and that impressed Kapoor a lot. He had recommended the spinner to Zaheer Khan and VVS Laxman for their respective IPL teams, but they didn’t pay heed but when Kapoor got a chance to work with Gujarat Titans, he put his feet down to have him in the squad.

"I told [Ashish] Nehra you pick whoever you want, but let me pick one guy, that's Noor. Not many people knew about him. For me he was a left-handed Rashid Khan. If you want Rashid Khan at whatever amount and you're getting another one who is a left-hander... both can be a deadly combination,” Kapoor revealed in the post-match press conference.

"I've seen him bowl in junior cricket where he was a very, very confident young kid. He played against India when India was the top team at the U19 level and he was never scared. He was always there for a fight and there were some matches that we lost because of him and some matches we won closely because of him."

Kapoor revealed that it was initially tough to convince Nehra, but then the head coach relented and gave Noor a crack at the team. Then having Rashid Khan around and the advise he dished out for him was a big help for the young spinner.

"Earlier, because of having one spinner, we had to use two overs [of Rashid] up front, one in the middle and one at the death and that was not too many options for us. But now if Rashid is bowling well, we can bowl four overs upfront because we have another spinner there who is going to be difficult [to pick]," Kapoor said.

"Rashid kept telling him no you can't bowl like me, you have to bowl like yourself. Your action is different, my action is different. When he realised that, he started bowling better. Playing five pace bowlers really doesn't work when you play in India. In the middle overs we were going for plenty of runs at times so that's the reason why I kept pestering Nehra that we should play two spinners. Guys can't pick one (Rashid), so it'll be difficult for them to pick both together," Kapoor said.