Arjun said:
Any slow-medium pacer can become as effective as the tearaways, in that case. Why can't the Indians (or all slower bowlers, in general) do this more often? Is the action too stressful? The Indian seamers (particularly Zaheer and Agarkar) don't have the natural pace, but they try to bend their backs to get extra pace- that can be very stressful.Would you get more Brett Lee clones if you made wickets like the WACA's in India? We may know sooner than later, given how the wickets for the Duleep and Ranji knockouts have played. Then again, Pakistan and the West Indies have some rather slow pitches, yet you have a few tearaways emerging from there. It may be the "fast-twitch muscles" that Dennis Lillee mentioned as the cause of extra pace. It could be an action that runs faster. Maybe some Indian bowlers have both, but we don't know where they are.
Why dont all Indian medium pacers do that. Well many of them do. SS Paul for example or Mohanty, Prasad and Harvinder Singh amongst those who played in last ten years. Whatever they did was basically on account of movement in the air but if it is not accompanied by pace, even if not express, at least medium pace, it has its own problems.
Firstly, if you swing at below a critical speed, you tend to get what is referred as banana swing. Thats to say, the swing starts very early. For late swing, higher speeds are required. When bowlers swing at high speeds, the ball travels straight for some time since the velocity takes care of the wind resistance, as the ball proceeds on its way to the batsman, it slows down enough for the air to have an impact on the ball and it swings. Normally this is a major factor in late swing. Of course the bowling action helps. In swing movement is a bit later than out swing at the same pace.
So, if you are going to get the ball to swing from the time it leaves your hand, a good batsman will be ready for it. Though it will get many lesser batsmen. Mohinder Amarnath's success with lower order batsmen has a lot to do with this.
Secondly, not having enough speed makes increases the reaction time available to the batsman. Thus the bowlers error margin reduces much more. The slower the bowler the more accurate he needs to be, which means the range in which he pitches the ball for the batsman to take time to decide wether to play forward or back, is narrrower. A faster bowler gets a larger leeway. Thus a bit of in accuracy by a slower swing bowler gets badly punished.
2. Why should Indian bowlers try to bend their backs. Well, Zaheer was over doing it and his injuries were a result of that. Bowlers of Zaheer's pace would do very well if they swung the ball. But remember,the limited over game really punishes a swinging ball due to the tight wide rule. Thus the propensity of limited over games has made most bowlers to do without the swinging ball, particularly those(like ,most left handers) whose natural delivery comes into the right handed batsman. The reason, obviously is the much tighter leg side wide rule.
If you dont bowl in swing (or out wing) with a new ball normally, you are not likely to be able to swing when you want to. Actions are extremely habit forming. People who suddenly lose their swing or their spin have all made some involuntary change in their bowling action and not able to get it back.
In the seventies, I dont remember playing any left arm new ball bowler whose stock delivery did not swing considerably in the air. Even Bishan Bedi would take a new ball in a match where the pace bowler had not come and gently bowl his inswingers and it did move !! Today, most left arm bowlers want to bowl over the wicket to right handers and make the ball angle across their bosies. In those days, they bowled round the wicket and swung them in sharply and for variation bowled cutters from the same spot which moved off the wicket towards slips.
The only reason for going round the stumps was, if the ball was swinging prodigiously and it was difficult to get an LBW decision bowling round the wicket.
Balaji does swing the ball. Thats why he gets wickets. Nehra, whatever success he achieved was because he swung the ball in. The modern day batsmen are not that used to swing bowling and it always manages to surprise them. I am surprised and wonder what an Imran Khan would have done. He would have run through most sides.
3. Why dont we have fast bowlers
Multiplicity of reasons. Wickets is only one and not the major one. Wickets will help the batsmen more by getting them used to faster wickets. To the bowlers it helps only to the extent of motivating them and rewarding them for bending there backs. This in return would 'retain' young bowlers in the faster bowling area. Nothing more.
The major problem is physique and diet. Pakistan gets almost all their fast bowlers from Noth and North west. The Punjabis and the Pathans. First of, let us understand that even in Punjab as you move towards the West the bodies are bigger. Thus the North Western Punjabis are much bigger and taller than the South Eastern Punjabis. So we start with a handicap of having lost the bigger guys amongst the Punjabis, in a way, at the time of partition. Secondly, Punjabis in India did not take to cricket as they dod in Pakistan. In India cricket remained an elitist game first in Bombay and in Delhi and around it also it was played by the middle class and trading community. The jats favoured hocky (if at all they were inclined to play sport). This trend has continiued.
The other people who played cricket were from West and South. Not naturally big built and with a propensity of vegetarians. Remember, even a non-vegetarian in the North, like me , for example, does not eat meat very often. The diet, over centuries, and the built of those who took to the game are much bigger reasons than the wickets. Even now a large number of the boys who play cricket in Punjab are what are called 'bhapaas'. Basically a trading community and not the agriculturist jats.
So leave Kapil and look at those who bowled for India with the new ball and trace back their antecedents and you will see.
Look at the Indian team pre partition and you will find the two fastest bowlers produced by India, Mohammad Nissar and Ramji (brother of Amar Singh himself a very fine medium fast bowlers) Nissar bowled a bouncer on the tour to England and the ball nearly went for 6 byes !!
Then there were those who went to Pakistan.
What you should ask yourself is that with so many Indians having played for west Indies , a virtual factory of fast bowlers, how come all of them were either spinners or batsmen starting from Ramadhin and Kanhai to Sarwan, Chanderpaul and Rampaul. You will get the answer. The wickets, the atmosphere, the peers around them could not convert the West Indians of Indian origin to become fast bowlers. The reason is the same.
