Bowling in Indian Cricket: The story of the art that has always taken the 'backseat'

The trio that was instrumental in taking India to the pinnacle of success

Indian cricket has always been blessed with a wealth of batting talent and continues to be so. From the times of Maharaja Ranjeet Singhji to the era of Sachin Tendulkar we have had batsmen who would walk into any World XI of their times. But what about that section of the cricket team which we tend to marginalize. How many bowling legends can we boast of? We have never really had a genuine pace bowler in our ranks to terrorize the opposition, though we have had very good swing and seam bowlers. Barring the great Kapil Dev, I cannot recall an Indian seam-bowler who can be counted amongst the ‘greats’ of world cricket. With no disregard to the likes of Manoj Prabhakar, who was a canny mover of the cricket ball and Javagal Srinath, a whole-hearted war-horse, one cannot label them as ‘greats’. Zaheer Khan has been a real revelation but to label him a ‘great’ would be naïve; he has crucial 3-4 years left in him, which would decide if he etches his name amongst the greats.

Traditionally, India has been regarded as a reservoir of spin talent. All cricket followers would know about the times when India’s spinning arsenal was dreaded by the opposition. The likes of B.S.Chandrashekhar, Prasanna, Bedi and Venkatraghavan would have the opposition batsmen in a spin (pun intended). If you escape the trap of one of them, the other would get you invariably. Much like what the English seamers did to the Indian batsmen in the recent drubbing we got in the test series. There is little doubt that the likes of Bedi, Chandra and Prasanna were great bowlers in the real sense of the word ‘great’. Then we had to wait till the 90s’ for Anil Kumble to arrive on the scene and spin his way to greatness. Potentially, the next great spinner we have is Harbhajan Singh. But in Kumble’s absence he has been tested to the extreme and the off-spinner has failed to deal with the expectations so far. May be it is just a bad patch for him; a pretty long one at that. Only time would tell how the ‘turbanator’ comes back.

The present state of our team in England is disheartening to say the least. But it does allow us to dig deep and ask serious questions which, we tend to ignore when we are doing well. Indeed the Indian team has done well in the past decade and we should be proud of the fact that we reached the pinnacle of test and ODI cricket very recently. I can stick my neck out and say that we will still win against the best of oppositions in the sub-continent. But do we have our system in place to become a dominant force for the next five years in all the formats game, both at home and overseas? Not until we create a set-up where we nurture our bowling resources as seriously as our batting.

If we analyze the champion teams of the past, the West Indies of the 70’s and early 80’s and the era of the Aussies from mid 90’s till very recently, we see that they were extremely balanced teams. The West Indies had the most hostile of pace attacks of all time while the Kangaroos had a complete bowling attack comprising of spin and pace. Even when Pakistan became ODI world champions, they had a champion bowling unit. These attacks were capable of winning matches in all conditions. Hence they were ‘great’. The Indians may have had great bowlers but hardly have we been able to field a complete bowling attack. No team can become a consistent world dominating force without a pool of high-class bowlers.

The sad part is that we do not recognize the fact that we need to manage our bowlers and harness young bowling talent in order to rule the roost in world cricket ‘consistently’. Why aren’t the Indian boys urged by the BCCI to have a stint in the English county circuit. Are they left with any time to do so? Look what a massive difference it made to Zaheer Khan! Playing incessant cricket, most of it on placid pitches in the sub-continent, in hot-sultry conditions is asking for trouble if you are a fast-bowler. Do not be surprised then if a bowler who starts at 145 km/hr, after two years is huffing and puffing to reach the 130 mark on the speed gun.

There aren’t enough cricketers in the administrative set up of the BCCI to understand the requirements of the players. They do not even allow a Player’s Association to be formed where players can express a collective concern, so how can they give a nod to a Sports Bill that would make them answerable? Until and unless we create bowling heroes in this country (it should be the prerogative of the BCCI), we would not inspire a 10-year-old to hurl the ball at a batsman as fast as he can, while searching for the next Anil Kumble would be like shooting in the dark. If Pakistan can spot raw pacers from the streets and Sri Lanka can unearth mystery spinners from nowhere, surely a country with a population of more than 1.2 billion and unparalleled love for the game can do much better.