This is a subject very close to my heart. As a guy who was involved heavily in the club, U-17 and U-19 levels in India, I believe that I have a reasonable understanding of the subject.
This is going to be a bit of a rant (under some influence), so read further at your own peril.
Fast bowling, as an art, is poorly understood in India, IMHO. Dennis Lillee sums it up aptly when he says that "medium-pacers who bowl a good line and length and get their five wickets" are preferred over quick bowlers with potential.
Goughy (a CW poster that I highly respect) and other experts would tell you that for bowling genuinely quick the basic ingredients have to be there. A reasonable atheletic coordination, a fair ratio of fast twitch: slow twitch fibre muscles and an ability to go through the pain barrier better than the average athelete on the street. I was fortunate in that I inherited good genes and coming from a background of atheletics and martial arts, I was failry athleletic as a teenager (then).
I am posting under the influence of half a litre Jack Daniel's here, so I'd let myself go a bit!
As a guy who moved from a background of mountaneering and long-distance running to cricket at 15 years of age, I believed I had the basic raw material to make a reasonable fast bowler. I was from the Himalayan region of Garhwal (in northern India) and honed my modest cricketing skills in the western Indian town of Vadodara.
It was a bit tough managing my education in the science stream (and later engineering) with cricket, but I made some progress. Anyone who has studied in India would know that it's not the easiest job in the world to strike this balance. I was an out-and-out quick since the time I was 15, but the uneasy perception I always had was that a more "conventional" medium-pacer would be preferred over me. The fact that I was a
pahari playing club cricket in the province of Gujarat didn't exactly help my case either.
Bowling quick in India is more of a psychological challenge than a physical one, IMHO. There were coaches and Ranji-players who told me that I had no future
even before I bowled my first ball in the match. My cardinal sin was that I focussed in being a genuinely fast, strike bowler rather than one who could jam it in good areas to contain the batsmen. As a strong-headed, rebellious teenager, I wasn't one that would fit into the the mould easily, so to speak. I was quick and I could swing them (chiefly away) to give the batsmen a workover, but I never learnt the art of bowling to contain. Every ball was delivered with the sole purpose of getting them out. Regardless of the match condition.
I had a rather good couple of years in the club scene in Baroda, but I wasn't comfortable with the way they (the establishment) viewed me. Even though I got wickets and managed to move into the U-17 (and later U-19) squad, I had the uneasy feeling that they were trying to mould me into something that I wasn't meant to be. A line-and-length medium pacer who could give a decent return in the 30-over matches. My 7-0-35-3 sort of figures weren't exactly favoured by the men in charge.
Besides, there was always a discouragement at bowling quick at "established" batsmen. They'd kill your aggressive streak even before you're old enough to realise that you possess one. There was an occasion where my mate and I bowled a series of sharp, short-pitched stuff at a Baroda Ranji player (the man averaged 45 in f/c cricket) and we were taken off because the batsman wasn't getting to "practise his shots" in the way that he should.
It dawned on me gradually that being a medium-pacer in the Baroda club scene basically meant being a "bitch" for the batsmen (excuse the language) and that's something I never took kindly to. I managed to make a career out of my other love - engineering - but sometimes, I can't help get a feeling that with a little perseverence I could have done ok in cricket. Ah, well! Life's an expereince and you live on to learn and grow with each day.