Five Top Indian fast bowlers of all time

Here we will take a look at the five top Indian fast bowlers of all time. Fast bowling has always been Indias second favoured art of bowling, an art not generally associated with Indians. All the same, over the years weve had a few exceptional players who have made the country proud with their fast bowling abilities.For this article, I havent just taken the statistics into account. That would make the job of preparing this list easy and merely mechanical. The influence that a player had over the performances of the team during his playing days is a criterion too.

#5 Roger Binny

You might wonder what a person, who has played just 27 Tests and 72 ODI’s and taken just 47 and 77 wickets respectively, is doing on this list. Roger Binny’s statistics do not do the slightest justice to the impact he had as a player on the team.

Binny was the leading wicket taker in India’s successful World Cup campaign in 1983 taking 18 scalps, which was a record then. He took these wickets at an average of 18.66 runs apiece. He was also the second highest wicket taker in the 1985 Benson and Hedges World Championship despite missing one match. His average and strike rate were an unreal 13.66 and 19.8 respectively.

As these records suggest, Binny was instrumental in both those Indian victories and India’s leading bowler in two world stage victories cannot be ignored from the list, can he?

#4 Venkatesh Prasad

Most remembered for his banter with Aamir Sohail (Prasad did have the last laugh) in the intense Indo-Pak quarter-final clash in the World Cup of 1996, Prasad has achieved a lot more than that on the field for India.

Prasad could move the ball both ways and also had a well disguised slower ball in his repertoire. Prasad was an integral part of the line-up in the late 90’s up until the turn of the millennium. In Prasad, Srinath had a capable partner in crime.

Perhaps, Prasad’s moment of crowning glory came in the first Test against Pakistan in 1999, where he picked up career best figures of 6-33 which included and incredible spell of 5 for naught. A spell even Ambrose would be proud of.

#3 Zaheer Khan

Second only to Kapil Dev on the list of fast bowlers with most international wickets (593) for India, Zaheer Khan certainly deserves this place on this list. Arguably one of the best exponents of reverse swing in his era, Zak constantly drew comparisons to the legendary Wasim Akram.

Not the fastest in the world by any stretch of imagination, Zaheer made up for the lack of pace with potent swing, both conventional swing with the new ball and reverse swing with the older one.

The leader of the Indian bowling attack throughout the 2000’s, Khan proved his mettle with the ball time and again. He was named one of the Wisden Cricketers of the Year in 2008. The World Cup of 2011 turned out to be an exceptional outing for Khan as he emerged joint highest wicket taker with 21 wickets.

Today, Zak is definitely past his prime and not getting any younger at 35. However, his performances over the last decade or so warrant the third place on this list.

#2 Javagal Srinath

What this tall and lanky fast bowler brought to Indian cricket since his debut in 1991 was a sight to behold. Arguably, Srinath is the fastest bowler that India ever produced.

The Indian school of thought generally places accuracy ahead of outright pace. We have seen numerous Indian fast bowlers start out with great pace and curb it as their career progresses for reasons such as accuracy or longevity of their careers. Thankfully, Srinath had no such thoughts and he kept his pace up throughout his career.

Srinath was a tall man with a strong shoulder action. Pace coupled with swing made him a force to be reckoned with. Srinath spearheaded the Indian attack for about a decade. On his day, he could rip through the most formidable batting line-ups with fiery spells of fast bowling.

Srinath is one of the most successful fast bowlers from India in both Tests and ODIs. His record of 315 ODI wickets stands unparalleled by any Indian to this date.

#1 Kapil Dev

The Haryana Hurricane heads the list of top Indian fast bowlers by far. Kapil Dev isn’t just India’s best fast bowler of all time, but also plausibly ranks amongst the top in the world.

“India doesn’t produce fast bowlers”, they said. Kapil Dev took it upon himself to change that perception.

Kapil Dev bowled with good pace and got the ball to swing away from the batsmen late, making life very difficult for them when he was around. He had incredible stamina too. This meant that he wasn’t at the batsmen for just short spells, but for long ones. He once bowled 30.3 overs on the trot against the West Indies to pick up 9 wickets in the innings.

At the time of his retirement, Kapil Dev had taken the most number of wickets in Test Cricket (434), supplanting Sir Richard Hadlee as the record holder. He was named one of the Wisden Cricketers of the Year in 1983.

“Why can’t a country of a billion produce another like Kapil Dev?” Kapil Dev’s stellar career has begged this question from many. The answer is quite simple. Kapil Dev was one in a billion. He was named the Wisden Indian Cricketer of the Century in 2002, after all. In 2010, Kapil Dev was befittingly inducted into the ICC Cricket Hall of Fame.