by The Professor » Sun Jan 31, 2016 12:03 pm
A section of a post for my blog inspired by this question:
The fact is inescapable. India are no longer producing fast bowlers.
A casual observer of the ODIs against Australia can seen that. The T20i results have turned fortunes around for the Indian team, but T20 games are not the natural home of the fast bowler. In the ODIs India planted their flag in lofty summits, only for it to be ripped out again by Australian batsmen.
I have chalked this down to a new phenomenon but it would appear I am wrong. Since 2000, India has scored more than 300 batting first on 58 occasions, losing ten times and conceding one draw. So what is it that is up with the Indian bowlers?
One perennial favourite reason is the financial allure of the IPL. Whether you like it or not the IPL has had a seismic effect on cricketing culture in India. The IPL has encouraged the world's best fast bowlers to extend their repertoire of deliveries. To be just a good fast bowler now is not enough to get you the big contract and be picked up by a franchise. This has caused young Indian bowlers to spread their time in other disciplines, thus affecting their prowess as a fast bowler.
Knowledge of the IPL franchises proves that if you are a fast bowler who bats a bit your place in the team is assured. This sees these bowlers spend half their time working on their pace bowling, the other time trying to fit the round peg of batting into the square hole. I personally believe that the fact that the poster boy of Indian cricket for the last twenty years has been Sachin Tendulkar, a consummate batsman, has sub-consciously skewed the national dreams of a generation of young Indian cricketers. Even if you are not distracted by the lure of batting, you will, at very least, be encouraged to work on yorkers and slower ones, which will therefore distract you from your trade as a fast bowler.
Children who have grown up in India playing cricket on the streets and on spare patches of ground must look askance at the criticism of Indian tracks; however, as can be seen by the recent South African series, pitches are not being maintained for fast bowling. This is a cricketing equivalent of the chicken or the egg. Are pitches being made to suit spin because Indian fast bowlers are so poor or is Indian fast bowling so poor because pitches are suited to spin?
Another fact that is inescapable – in matches outside the sub-continent the quick bowlers are the chief weapon in the armoury of a team. At this rate India will be substandard without them.
"It has been said of the unseen army of the dead, on their everlasting march, that when they are passing a rural cricket ground the Englishman falls out of the ranks for a moment to look over the gate and smile."