Fast bowling - It's all about the attitude

Zaheer Khan has always had the aggressive attitude with him

If you have that attitude, you will naturally work hard on your fitness, in order to be able to tirelessly bowl long spells in unforgiving conditions. The harder you work on it, the less likely you are to get injured (or let injuries affect your performance).

Wasim Akram was one of the fittest cricketers of all time. Shane Bond’s career was beset by injuries, but never once did he slacken his pace. Brett Lee broke bones in his feet; his back went through hell throughout his career, but never once did he let that affect his bowling speed. In the Big Bash League, even at an age of 37, we could see pictures of “Binga” in that powerful delivery stride, landing on that back leg and exploding that hip forward. Even the much-maligned Shoaib Akhtar never lost pace or venom.

We Indians often look across the border with jealousy, and wonder how Pakistan so easily produces aggressive, wicket-taking fast bowlers, while we find it hard to do so. The wickets are the same (in fact they are probably even flatter), the weather is just as hot and dry, and they look and talk just like us. It’s not just pace – contrary to popular belief not all Pakistani fast bowlers are that fast. Aaqib Javed bowled slower than Javagal Srinath, for example.

It’s all in the attitude – Indian fast bowlers, unlike their Pakistani counterparts, too often get into a defensive mode of just bowling line and length and trying to build pressure rather than actually trying to get people out. It doesn’t help that over the years Indian captains (with the exception of Sourav Ganguly and to an extent Rahul Dravid) have set really defensive fields for fast bowling.

MS Dhoni, for example, is tactically poor when it comes to managing his fast bowlers. Too often have we seen him taking slips out and putting them in cover positions or sending deep points out when batsmen have just come to the crease. That sort of captaincy kills the rhythm of a fast bowler. Fast bowlers are key weapons when India travel outside the subcontinent, and Dhoni’s field settings don’t change even when we go overseas.

Our bowling coaches are unfortunately also to blame. The BCCI’s solution to our fast bowling woes has always been – hire a bowling coach from a non-Asian country. What will a state cricketer from South Africa or Australia know on how to bowl fast in Indian conditions? Obviously they’ll just fall back to cliches – bowl line and length, try to hit the top of off, etc. Which our bowlers end up doing with no venom and get smashed around. This destroys their confidence and they struggle even when they play overseas in helpful conditions.

I’m not saying the solution is to hire Wasim Akram as our bowling coach (although that would be great), but it is to simply inculcate a proper fast-bowler’s attitude from a young age. Lack of fast bowlers who can have prolonged successful careers is what holds back India from exerting their dominance in world cricket.