Indian Bowling

Well i was thinking about writing over this for a long time. So finally i have got the time to write about the state of Indian bowling. In this batsmen dominated game and this batsman crazy country somehow people tend to ignore bowlers. For me Indian bowling has been in quite a pathetic state for sometime now. In the WC '2003 it was the Indian bowling which took us to the finale. But it was them who blew it away when it mattered most. Recently India lost the ODI series against Pakistan and drawn the Test series. Indian bowlers regularly gave away 300 odd runs in almost every match. Even in test matches Indians were treated badly by the Pakistan batsmen. In the first test lesser test batsmen like Akmal and Razzaq played out almost a day. And in the final test Younis & Inzamam took Indian bowling to the sword. Pakistanis are a decent bat, but not as good a batsmen as the Indians made them to be especially in the Test matches. I couldn't remember the last time a Pakistani batsman scored over 150 in last few years before they did against the Indians. Their batsmen are not known to stay at the wicket for long. Even the West Indian bowling attack which has been treated like novices for last 2 years managed to restrict Pakistan to decent totals. But still somehow whenever we lose a match, the media points to the failure of Indian batsmen. Yes they too have to be better, but for how long the Indian bowlers will need a 300 plus total to defend successfully. The failure of Indian bowlers tends to be ignored and same old bowlers keep rotating in the team. It’s pretty rare that an Indian bowler takes a 5-er for less than a hundred and by that time opposition is close to a big score of 400.

India boasts of bowlers like Irfan Pathan, who become a star without too much to show in his records. He looked promising in Australia, good in Pakistan. Then his first 5-ers against Bangladesh and he was a star. The result, against Pakistan in the recent home series he looked an amateur! He is yet to take a 5-er against a Test Playing Nation (except Bangladesh) and he is India's best fast bowler. Zaheer Khan and Ashish Nehra are injured more often than not. Both have dropped pace off late like Pathan and before they get into the rhythm the get injured again!! Balaji has looked good in home and away Tests against PakistanAustralia for long. Apart from a few 5-ers here and there for more than 120 odd runs he has been just an average bowler for long. And finally a bowler, who has been in and out of the team for past 6-7 years. The bowler who keeps coming again and again in the team by promising a lot, just to fail again. And as Harsha Bhogle once aptly commented about him "He's a great bowler when he gets going, it's only when, that has been a problem for him". Infact Agarkar's story shows us a few points: but is just an average in ODIs. Kumble has always been a star for the home pitches in Tests. While Harbhajan has been living on '01 series performance against

1. The difference between Indian domestic cricket and international cricket is just too much, that he keeps performing domestically to regain his place and then fail again at international level.

2. The Indian bowlers [in general players] don't improve by time. They just boast of a certain natural talent they have at the time of their debut and keep making same little mistakes again and again.

I think both the points are true to quite an extent, first one somehow the result of kind of pitches we have here in India. The second maybe because of the way the Indian players become stars overnight? This is a professional game and its high time that Indians start learning from their past mistakes and improve upon their natural talent. The Aussies are the best example of that, most of their players except for Ponting and Clarke have faced tough times like being dropped from the side. But they have made a comeback to be some of the finest players of all time like Warne, Hayden, Martyn, Symonds et al...

On a high note, well Indians have got a new Aussie coach in Greg Chappell, so i just hope he brings some professionalism into the Indians and make them a force to be reckon with in the upcoming WC '2007.

~Kon ??

Dated: Monday, June 13, 2005