Five promising Indian fast bowlers from last decade who never reached their potential

‘Taking 20 wickets will win you Test matches’ is a very old adage in cricket that holds true to this day, and that’s where Indian cricket has been lacking pretty much throughout its cricketing history. There was a brief period in the early to mid 2000s where India managed to find Test match success in hostile places like Australia and England. But that was more to do with the ability of their spinners – Anil Kumble and Harbhajan Singh – as opposed to possessing a quality pace bowling attack.To be fair, Zaheer Khan has done a marvelous job in spearheading the fast bowling attack over the last decade and has played an instrumental role in many of India’s recent overseas victories. The problem, though, is that there has simply been no able support to the left-armer for a sustained period of time. Infuriatingly, it’s not as if Indian cricket has not been able to produce fast bowlers of the requisite international quality. There have been a number of fast bowlers who have shown early promise and done well in their first 12-24 months of international cricket. But, mysteriously, they all seem to lose their way after showing flashes of brilliance and eventually fall by the wayside.Here are 5 promising Indian fast bowlers from the last decade who never reached their potential:

#5 Lakshmipathy Balaji

Lakshmipathy Balaji, it would be fair to say, had a very slow start to his international career. He had a forgettable ODI debut as he was smashed for 0/44 in just 4 overs against West Indies in 2002 and didn’t do much better in his first two Tests, either: with match figures of 1 for 105 and 0/78 against New Zealand in Ahmedabad and Mohali respectively. But the selectors retained their faith in Balaji for the tour of Pakistan in 2004, and he rewarded them by playing a crucial role in India’s historic Test series victory, taking a respectable 12 wickets from 3 Tests at a strike-rate of 53.

Just when Balaji was starting to feel a part of the India set-up, he suffered a stress fracture in 2005, which ruled him out of competitive cricket for almost 3 years. He had undergone numerous back surgeries in that period and was forced to remodel his bowling action in order to prevent the recurrence of further back problems. His comeback tournament was the inaugural season of the IPL, where his 11 wickets for Chennai Super Kings (CSK) included a hat-trick. He, then, forced his way back into the Indian team for an ODI series in Sri Lanka in 2009, remarkably just a few months after coming back from a lengthy lay-off, and was also included in the Indian squad for the Test tour of New Zealand shortly after, although he didn’t feature in any of the Tests.

Balaji, 32, might never be able to reach the heights he did during the 2004 Pakistan tour, but that is more due to his multitude of injuries, which has taken the bite away from his bowling.

#4 Munaf Patel

Former Indian cricketer Kiran More had spotted Munaf Patel bowl in the nets in 2003 and immediately sent him to the MRF Pace Foundation to train under the mentorship of TA Sekar and Dennis Lillee. A couple of years later, Munaf, hailed as the fastest bowler in Indian cricket at the time, earned his first call-up to the national team for the home Test series against England.

He started off in an impressive fashion on his Test debut in Mohali as he hurried the Englishmen up with his raw pace and ended up with match figures of 7/97: the best performance by an Indian fast bowler on Test debut. He took 25 wickets in his first 7 Tests, but a spate of injuries, especially to his lower back, meant that he was starting to spend the majority of his time off the field recuperating from his troubles.

This resulted in Munaf dropping his speed down to the low 130s within a year of international cricket, thereby losing a significant amount of threat in his bowling, and his career has largely gone downhill since then.

There have been a few highs, as well: he played every game during India’s triumph in the 2011 ICC World Cup, but these have been too few and far between for his liking.

#3 S Sreesanth

Shanthakumaran Sreesanth has sadly faded into oblivion in recent times as much for his indiscretions on the field as off it. But it could’ve all been a whole lot different had Sreesanth made more judicious use of his cricketing talents.

After a couple of impressive seasons for Kerala in the domestic circuit, Sreesanth was awarded his Test debut, against England, at home in March 2006. Not long after, Sreesanth played a crucial role in India winning the Test series in the Caribbean taking 5 wickets in the Jamaica Test and had figures of 5/40 and 3/59 in India’s famous Test win against South Africa in Johannesburg later that year.

Like most Indian fast bowlers, though, Sreesanth inexplicably lost his potency within the next 12 months or so. He was capable of bowling late outswingers at close to 90 mph when at his very best, but seldom has he produced those moments since his initial period of success with the Indian team.

#2 RP Singh

A part of the talented Indian Under-19 team alongside the likes of Robin Uthappa and Dinesh Karthik, Rudra Pratap Singh first came into the limelight with his performances in the 2004 U19 World Cup in Bangladesh, taking eight wickets at an average of 24.75 in the tournament.

One of a number of left-armers in Indian cricket, RP has the ability of bringing the ball back into the right-hander at good pace, and it was this skill of his that earned him a call-up to the Indian team in 2005. He had an indifferent start to his career, though, and was dropped before being recalled for the tours of Bangladesh and England in 2007, and the next 12 months of his international career remain his standout as yet.

He helped India to only their 3rd Test series win on English soil taking 12 wickets from 3 Tests at an outstanding strike-rate of 46.2 and played a pivotal role in India’s victory in the inaugural World T20 in South Africa in 2007 with an impressive 12 wickets from 7 matches at a miserly economy rate of 6.33, which is remarkable by T20 standards. His best performance during the two-week tournament came against South Africa in a virtual knockout game, where he took 4/13 and helped India progress to the semi-final.

Since then, however, he hasn’t been able to recreate that form and has been out of the reckoning as a result, sadly. He is still only 28, though, and, if he can work on his fitness and pick a truckload of wickets in the upcoming domestic season, there is still hope that his enormous ability as a fast bowler doesn’t go completely to waste.

#1 Irfan Pathan

It wouldn’t be ridiculous to suggest that Irfan Pathan was well on his way to becoming the closest India could ever have to Wasim Akram at one stage of his career. While never possessing the same pace as Akram, Pathan was just as gifted as far as his ability to move the ball in the air was concerned. He could swing the ball both ways without a discernible change in action at 85 mph or thereabouts and, just like Akram, could contribute handy runs down the order, as well.

Pathan was awarded his Test and ODI debuts for India at the age of 19, and it looked as though India had finally found a fast bowler who was truly world class. He took 71 wickets from 17 Tests in his first couple of years at a strike-rate of 49.4 and became the first bowler to take a hat-trick in the first over of a Test match – when he took the wickets of Salman Butt, Younis Khan and Mohammad Yousuf at Karachi in 2006 – as well. But Pathan, over time, became prone to technical advice from too many people for his own good and started losing the skills that had made him so potent early on in his career. In addition to that, a move to make Pathan the genuine all-rounder that India were desperately looking for turned out to be counterproductive. While a batting average of 31.57 suggests that his batting improved tremendously as a result of the work put into it, his bowling deteriorated rapidly thereafter.