India vs Australia 2013: Miserable Indian fast bowling continues

India has not produced quality fast bowlers over the years.

In recent years we haven’t ever seen an Indian fast bowler, steaming into the batsman like Shoaib Akhtar, swinging the ball both ways like Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis, comprehensively beating the batsman like Glenn McGrath or bowling a fast yorker like Lasith Malinga.

The Indian team has a perfect captain, perfect set of batsmen, perfect bunch of young fielders, perfect spinners, but there are no perfect fast bowlers. There is not a single Indian bowler who is capable of the above mentioned qualities of a perfect fast bowler.

Watching today’s match between India and Australia, the visitors understandably never looked in trouble from the 1^st ball. It looked as if the openers Phil Hughes and Aaron Finch came out to bat fully adapted to the conditions. The Aussie batsmen were playing like they are batting against a low class bunch of bowlers.

The leg slip kept for Hughes in the form of Raina was of no effect today as the Aussie left hander negotiated leg side deliveries well. Ishant Sharma consistently bowled to his legs because of that leg slip fielder but never did anything by himself. It looked as if he has come just to bowl his 10 allotted overs.

It seemed to me as if the Indian players have not come into the field for attacking and taking wickets. They just came to wait for the batsman’s mistake. This was seen in Vinay Kumar’s over when Watson went for the risk. Australia were cruising along at 182/1 when Watson tried to dismiss Kumar’s short-pitched delivery for a six but was caught by the tall and long-haired Ishant Sharma.

M S Dhoni was also seen getting furious towards his bowlers for bowling a weak line and length. They started well but when the batsmen had set their eye in, there was no stopping them. The miserable effort from the bowlers continued which reached at its peak in the death overs. Again the Indian bowling attack failed during the last part of Australian innings. Each time a fast bowler looked to bowl a yorker, it turned into a low full-toss to which Bailey and Maxwell made full use.

This kind of bowling has been the tradition for India. Apart from few bowlers like Kapil Dev, Javagal Srinath and Zaheer Khan, there hasn’t been a single fast bowler who can bowl consistently well throughout the match.

Many cricket critics have correctly criticized the pitch curators for such results. Here, they make turning pitches and that’s the result why we have produced some terrific spinners like Bishan Singh Bedi, Erapalli Prasanna, Harbhajan Singh, Anil Kumble and others. But Indians always failed in the department of fast bowling and probably the main reason behind whitewash defeats in England and Australia.

By making pitches of such quality, the Indian batsmen are also traditionally failures in front of short-pitch bowling. The overseas fast bowlers employ this strategy whenever they see an Indian batsman batting.

Pitches with green top will not only inspire the fast bowlers, but also it will make a balance in the team. If a team has 7 batsmen and 3 spinners, then that’s not a balanced one. At least it should have 2 genuine fast bowlers who can take wickets at any time during the match.

If the emergence of producing more spinners continues, then in no time we will have a team which will consist of only batsmen and spinners. Green pitches will attract more young fast bowlers and will also give confidence to them.