Yeah impressed everyone in the IPL .....but did nothing much else .........
The IPL teams were significantly stronger than the Rajasthan and Hyderabad teams he played against. We'd get a clearer idea if he played against stroner batting sides like TN or Delhi- he struggled even against Saurashtra.Good to see him bowl like this in the FC matches......which are the real tests for young bowlers like him....because T20 can be strange for them.
Yeah Murali was in Zimbabwe ........& only 1-2 matches are left for Bengal....so we should not expect him now.....beacuse he will go to Bangladesh & the series is starting from third week of this month.
Awta,,we'll get a clear picture after two seasons. Looking forward to seeing him in IPL#2. I'll be disappointed if he hasn't made improvements from last year. He even got scholarship to train in Austraia for 6 weeks,i think.Must have gained something there.
Dilhara Fernando was missing for some reason from the Baroda team. Enamul Haque Jr was picked to play for Maharashtra and has been a huge flop.
That Border-Gavaskar scholarship has been granted to Avishkar Salvi (very promising young pacer whose career was cut short by injury), Rakesh Patel (now in ICL), Siddharth Trivedi, Munaf Patel and a few others, including a non-performing star-son. While it helps those players a lot, we wonder what improvement happens. Often, none of them add any pace. A cleaner action will add a little more pace and also reduce injuries, but we don't know if it's happened. Munaf Patel is a scholarship holder, but he's bowling very slowly these days. Talking of pace, rather than try to run another speedster-hunt (Mid-Day Race For Pace, Scorpio Speedster) or pick up some relatively unknown (and less successful) bowler and brand him a 'pace hope', why not work on building up pace of the existing bowlers? Zaheer, Irfan, Ishant and even Munaf are among the best pace bowlers in the country, and from the not-too-distant previous generation, there's Balaji. Surely they can benefit with extra pace?
What would you prefer? Zaheer Khan bowling with extra pace or some unknown bowler hyped up as a 'tearaway pace hope' playing for India? We've seen good bowlers miss the India berth because they lack pace, while absolute duds make the XI on the promise of pace. Lack of pace is a genuine problem and should be addressed.
Munaf still appears to be well short of match-fit, and struggles to even pick up a ball in the outfield. Action tweaks haven't been explored too well out here, nor is much being done regarding fitness. A lot of pacers here don't appear to be fit or very athletic, and their shoddy fielding is evidence of that. Every tearaway pacer, we find, is a very effective fielder.
You have to have the right raw material to get the best results. We can't expect someone who's bowled consistently in the 120s to reach the Brett Lee/Shoaib Akhtar pace bracket. You have some bowlers who can bowl fast, but can't get it across consistently.
While we know that most pacers reach a steady pace at some age, we find several Indian pacers lose it, often permanently. We know how fast they are, on the day, and that needs to be harnessed. Biomechanical studies can do their bit in enhancing pace.
Basant Mohanty. My money on this guy to earn atleast an India A call in the off season.
