India’s eternal quest to find a genuinely quick bowler continues. But is the search worth it
Aat his peak, Javagal Srinath was adjudged the world’s fastest bowler — in the vegetarian category. From day one, Indian cricket fans have missed out on the opportunity to cheer their pace bowler, hurtling down with bouncers and yorkers at over 150 km per hour. The guile of gentle spin has been more our forte. For fast bowling, we have had to make do with medium pace and even military medium. Some international experts have put it down to the protein-deficient Indian diet. Beef eaters, still others have said, make better fast bowlers.
Are we incapable of producing genuine quick bowlers? Since 2004, India has produced 15 — yes, 15 — fast bowlers. Or at least medium fast. Now many would question this fascination with speed.
After all, a good-quality medium-fast bowler is better than a tearaway pacer who will be plagued by injuries after every Test series or so. But then, even the medium fast bowlers we’ve produced either fall off the radar or get injured.
V R V Singh, R P Singh and Pankaj Singh fall in these categories. And then there are others like Munaf Patel, S Sreesanth and Ishant Sharma who consistently vie for the fast bowler spot in the team alongside the mainstay, Zaheer Khan.
According to T A Sekhar, coach with the Chennai-based MRF Pace Academy and a former national selector: “We have produced a good crop of bowlers but for various reasons they have fizzled out.” Sekhar says that when someone turns up at the academy, the emphasis is never on getting him to bowl as fast as he can. “You just see if pace can be his strength or line and length,” he explains. On his part, he has never understood the fascination with producing express fast bowlers. “We have done quite well without one, haven’t we,” he asks.
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Numbers corroborate Sekhar’s point. Among the top five fast bowlers in Test cricket (in terms of wickets), only one, Courtney Walsh (519 wickets), was genuinely quick; all the others — Glenn McGrath (563), Kapil Dev (434), Richard Hadlee (431) and Shaun Pollock (418) — were medium pacers, relying more on swing to fox their victims.
But when you see Dale Steyn, Mitchell Johnson, Shaun Tait and Umar Gul bowling consistently at 140 km per hour, you tend to question why India doesn’t produce a genuinely quick fast bowler. “There are many reasons,” says former fast bowler and coach Paras Mhambrey. “Pitches aren’t conducive and there’s the fear of a short career with the amount of cricket being played.” Sometimes it’s also the case of loss of form and confidence. Ishant Sharma looked like a bowler who could bowl fast as well as maintain line and length, but loss of form has resulted in loss of pace as well. “At times, you sacrifice pace to concentrate on line and length,” says Mhambrey. Irfan Pathan is another case where pace dropped as a result of lack of confidence.
When Munaf Patel appeared on the scene about five years ago, he was touted as the quickest bowler in India. Yet, he has never bowled above 145 km per hour, and is now a medium pacer. “Munaf had to cut down on speed because of injuries,” says Sekhar. But that has helped in extending his career, he adds.
The young and upcoming crop of fast bowlers includes the likes of Jaidev Unadkat, Abhimanyu Mithun, Dhawal Kulkarni and Varun Aaron who clocked 153 km per hour on a speed gun in domestic cricket. It would seem like India has a glut. But Krish Srikanth, former chairman of selectors, says it’s not a problem of plenty. “We have some talented bowlers, and we have to nurture them carefully,” he adds. Kamran Khan, India’s own slinger, was picked out from obscurity by Shane Warne for last year’s IPL. He failed to leave an impression then. And though he is in the Pune Warriors team for this edition of IPL, he has not played so far.
R P Sharma and L Balaji both broke on to the scene with a flourish and yet find themselves on the sidelines. And the likes of Ashok Dinda and Umesh Yadav failed to make a mark in the few chances they were given. “A fast bowler has to work hard on his fitness throughout his career,” says Mhambrey. At times, the players don’t realise the toll fast bowling takes on their body. Even Zaheer Khan suffered a lot of injuries and niggles early in his career. Ashish Nehra is a prime example of injuries taking a toll, says Sekhar. “He is a fantastic swing bowler but injuries have really hampered his career.”
Apart from Kapil Dev, who put Indian fast bowling on the world cricketing map, only two fast bowlers have taken more than 200 Test wickets — Srinath (236) and Zaheer Khan (257). “We have produced bowlers but not ones who have lasted long in international cricket,” says Sekhar. The pace merchants of the modern era include Brett Lee, Shoaib Akhtar, Shane Bond, Dale Steyn and Makhaya Ntini. Barring Lee and Steyn, all others found their careers hampered by injuries. Bond is a case in point. He played only 18 Test matches for New Zealand, though he bowled at 145 to 150 km per hour consistently.
Mhambrey believes that people are quick to write off fast bowlers. “A batsman is allowed one or two bad series but a bowler rarely is. People always blame it on the lack of pace, which is unfair,” he says. The solution? A lot of discipline on the part of bowlers, say experts. “You have to keep on working on building your fitness, stamina and strength,” says Sekhar. He says when he read about Aaron, he was surprised but to bowl at that speed regularly in a match is a different ball game.
The likes of Mithun and Unadkat are the future of Indian fast bowling, according to Sekhar. But the BCCI has to be patient with them and not write them off after one or two indifferent performances. Mhambrey is of the opinion that we shouldn’t obsess about not having a genuinely quick bowler. “I would rather have three bowlers who can bowl medium fast than a guy who can bowl fast but not last for even a series.” Sekhar goes on to ask, “We talk about not producing fast bowlers but are we producing quality spinners — our so-called area of expertise?” Well, that’s another debate.