India's weak bowling attack

2nd ODI tournament in row a Virat Kohli special in a record chase ensured India were kicked out of the tourney and had to return home empty handed. One of those tournaments India hoped for a SL defeat and in the other they hoped for SL win, the Lankans obliged in neither thus earning the ire of Indian fans.  And of course BCCI who might now decide not to help SLC with financial commitments.  GOD had a backlog of prayers for a SL defeat during the CB tournament days and he obliged during the Asia cup and thus India went out.

World Champions and unable to win multi- team tournaments is a kind of blot in Indian resume and certainly not the kind of start they would have hoped for 2012.

Lot of controversies – rotation policy, place of Sachin Tendulkar in ODI team, resting of Sehwag and of course the most important issue of a weak bowling attack.

If you look at the defeats of CB series and Asia cup – there are 2 main things:

1.      Batting failed in Australia owing much of it to the silly rotation policy which was adopted and dumped for no satisfactory reason. Bowling was decent in the first half of that tournament, but later went hopeless.
2.      Not able to defend 290 against a Bangladesh team is a shame. And the kind of bowling attack we had in that game and worse, the kind of length the bowlers bowled was shameful.

Irfan Pathan, Vinay Kumar, Ashok Dinda and Praveen Kumar by no means read a very formidable attack. Not even decent.  Vinay Kumar succeeded in Australia as he got some bounce in those pitches, he failed in BD as his pace was easily read by the Deshi batsmen and he went for runs. Oh wait, he didn’t even play the game vs BD.  Irfan Pathan had no swing, no reverse swing in that game against BD. And his 120 kph deliveries were hammered for six ruthlessly by Deshi kids.  Still he had no clue on how to bowl in those conditions. He was the most experienced Indian bowler of the tournament with over 114 games and close to 167 wickets. 9 years of international cricket behind him and he came up with that kind of stuff.

This bowlers don’t have pace and when they don’t have pace, they become predictable. And that’s what happened. PK, Pathan and Dinda went for runs in that game. And not even talking of the Pak game where the bowling effort was saved by that Virat Kohli special.

So what’s the cure / prognosis for this problem? India doesn’t produce fast bowlers in the quantity it produces batsmen.  Dravid is gone and I am sure in few months or years, we’d have 3 or 4 batsmen who would be good enough to take his slot of # 3 in tests (they wont emulate Dravid). But if a Zaheer Khan is gone, then we are empty handed. We are still missing Anil Kumble from the spin department. He was the last aggressive spinner India had in ODIs  and that too spans good 10 years back till he had that shoulder injury in 2000.

Varun Aaron, Umesh Yadav are the only bowlers besides Zaheer Khan who have some pace (140s). But they are kids and there are enough Venkatesh Prasads floating around in the system to advice them on how to bowl in 120s and 130s.  Munaf Patel is one best example.  Sreesanth, Patel, Nehra have been tried and tested. And failed. Ishant Sharma remains a safe bet, but will he be tried in ODIs ? His bowling in Tests have been termed as unlucky, but he doesn’t look to be taking wickets (England and Australia tours are examples).

The new fast bowlers aint coming.  And until there is a fast bowler in the team who can bowl with some pace and rattle the stumps, such kind of defeats to BD would keep happening.

Spin bowling even looks horrible.

Harbhajan Singh is out of favor. His replacement R Ashvin has guts to accept that his main job is to contain, not take wickets. End of story.  If he gives 40 runs and takes 0 wickets, he is a happy man.  We’d have been happy if he went for 55 runs and grabbed 3 wickets. Something likes Saeed Ajmal does.  So  the old good Ajit Agarkar was a good prospect. He went for runs but he took wickets. He still stands at 3rd # in the list of most ODI wickets after Kumble and Srinath.

Rahul Sharma isn’t being tried much in ODIs. Pragyan Ojha is viewed as test bowler and despite being better in the home series vs WI than Ashvin, he warmed the benches down under and Ashvin had a horrible run in the test series. In the ODIs he was successful only against SL, Australia handled him with ease. Same story continued in Asia Cup. He got 2 crucial wickets in game against SL, but leaked out runs against Deshis and the game was lost.

Ashok Dinda was looked upon as best fast bowler in the country by Ganguly, but he was wrong. He didn’t suggest anything in the Asia cup that vindicated DADA’s faith in him. He jumps a lot more in air than he has the pace. 130-137 kph, that’s it. That’s what he has got. No wickets. Decent slower balls.  Fire in his eyes when hit for a 4, but no fire in the balls. 

On the ending note, its an impression that’s being felt by the team selection  that the Chennai brigade is out to implant all Tamil Nadu and CSK players in the national team and those players are immovable. They just don’t get dropped.  Jadeja played all games in Australia and 2 in Asia cup. That was more than what Tendulkar, Gambhir and Sehwag played.  Ashvin played almost all games and didn’t get dropped except in a game when India went for 4 quicks and lost.  Raina returned to form from the Hobart game, before that he played all games.  His contribution is certainly more than Jadeja or Ashvin, but at one stage in Australia he was just occupying one slot.

Manoj Tiwary, the guy who made a 100 in his last ODI is not being played even when the batting failed in Australia.   He is just not been in good books of MSD for unknown reasons. Same goes for Yusuf Pathan and Saurabh Tiwary.

Jadeja, cannot hit, cannot bowl, but he is still a crucial part of the team and he plays at 7. Whenever he improvises he gets out.  Only asset – decent fielding.  Yusuf Pathan might be similar bowler like Jadeja but his batting is lot more matured and useful than Jadeja’s.

But the problem is Tiwarys and Pathans don’t play for CSK and Indian cricket is being run by Chennai brigade that has a strong say in CSK affairs – captain, BCCI chief and of course the chief selector hail from CSK camp. And now since Dravid has left, its been suggested that Dabrinath would be brought in the test team to replace the WALL and how insane that would be.

Enjoy watching Tendulkar as long as you can

The World cricket has already been poorer by expected retirement of the Indian WALL -- Rahul Sharad Dravid, so it would be inept and unjust for those media experts and ex-players cooling off their heels in air conditioned rooms to ask Sachin Tendulkar to quit the game.

Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid have been once in a generation, or perhaps once in a century phenonmenon and we've been lucky to have them play together for India in similar era. And what a partnership they've had for the 3rd wicket in 100s of Test matches over last 15 and half years. And thats a sad fact that this partnership wont take guard any more in the Test cricket for India in future and we've been blessed enough to have witnessed those innumerable rearguards launched by this stalwarts of Indian cricket.

No words on any of the cricketing sites, blogs or forums are enough to describe the legacy of Rahul Dravid and Sachin Tendulkar. People this days love to trash the greats, question their commitment for the country and even ridicule them or joke about them on social networking sites and news channels.

Little do they forget that this players scored 1000s of runs for a country which was deprived of the milestones or winning habit. Though for some time, that winning habit seems to have been forgotten, yet their legacy and contribution to the Indian cricket is unparalleled and would be untouched in the history of the game.

In a country woefully short of sports role models, the players like Tendulkar and Dravid are idles of success, humbleness and modesty. Never has anybody seen this two icons lose their cool in the middle or seen crossing the acceptable on field behavior like Mahela Jayawardhena does so often under the guile of passion. Dedication, concentration and work ethics are emanating out of this 2 proud cricketing sons of the country and it would be just unfair to trash their contribution for past 8 defeats in 8 overseas Tests.

I concur with Sir Viv that lets enjoy the Sachin phenomenon as much as we can as that day of announcement from the master blaster is not years away, but just few series or months away. And i cant imagine the day when I'd be left to watch an Indian team which would never have Tendulkar play for, something which I have witnessed for most part of my cricket watching time (23 of 27 years).