I know that India’s weak fast bowling attack is NOT NEWS.
However, the bowling for the Test Series against England is weak even by India’s low standards.
Except Zaheer and Kumble(who of course is a spinner), the rest of India’s bowling is below ordinary.
R P Singh - very inconsistent Sreesanth - All Drama, No Substance
**Ishant Sharma **- Unadulterated Crap. If I was the selector, I would have dropped him for good after watching his first few overs in BD. He absolutely has ZERO variety. Ranadeb Bose - Haven’t seen him bowl. But , as per Cricinfo, clearly was struggling against Sussex.
We need a true all-rounder (somebody in the Pathan mould) to be able to field 5 bowlers to make up in quantity what we don’t have in quality. Or else, call up Nehra or even Balaji…
Re: India’s current fast bowling attack - VERY WEAK
‘Fast’ bowling? These guys are hand-tossing cucumbers at 25 mph with their hour-long run-ups.
Rahul Dravid’s thoughts surrounding Irfan Pathan:
In the long run, five bowlers is the way to go. I truly do believe that. But to successfully implement the five-bowler strategy we need to have a good wicketkeeper-batsman - which we do in Dhoni - and an allrounder, preferably a fast-bowling allrounder from India’s perspective, because we’re generally going to have a couple of good spinners. Irfan [Pathan] was the person who could do that role but he’s unfortunately fallen away and has not been able to maintain his place in the side (CricInfo).
I have no idea why he is not being reintroduced into the side now that Chappell has phased out. Someone of his caliber, an all-rounder nonetheless, should be just continued with. No clue what happened to his status, one day it seemed like he just dropped from the face of this earth.
Re: India's current fast bowling attack - VERY WEAK
I think Saqlain's reported swipe at Sreesanth was very appropriate : "Apne ko Shoaib Akhtar samajhta hai ?".
The guy goes around staring down batsmen as if he were some Bret Lee or something while mostly bowling friendly cucumbers (as Dhobi_bhai puts it).
In one test match against West Indies, India needed 1 last WI wicket to win the test with about 6-7 overs remaining on the last day. And Sreesanth kept bowling wide outside off or bouncers not even making the batsman play. The Test ended in a draw. And that episode told me a lot about Sreesanth's bowling intelligence.
Re: India's current fast bowling attack - VERY WEAK
You have got the bowling line wrong. India's bowling attack is
1) Tendulkar
2) Ganguly
3) Yuvraj
4) Sehwag
Does Dhoni bowl? India has to snap out of this idiotic bowling lineup. Their bowling attach never had and never will have a bite cuz of the defensive mindset.
Sreesanth definitely has talent. The idiot needs to be tamed.
Pathan is not an opener. Let him bowl. Don't screw with the guy's career.
India is getting its ass kicked by England Lions. That's just pathetic bowling and bowling lineup.
Re: India's current fast bowling attack - VERY WEAK
As we have seen , this attack can't even clean up the tailenders (as we saw against Sussex and now today against England Lions). How can we dismiss England twice in a test match is hard to figure out. Honestly, I have not seen a weaker Indian fast bowling attack for an English tour since I have been following cricket.
Re: India's current fast bowling attack - VERY WEAK
How come India can't come up with even decent fast bowlers like a small Island to its south regularly produces.
I am not asking for bowlers of the quality of McGraths/Brett Lee, not even Chaminda Vaas, just decent bowlers like Fernando and Mehroof.
Re: India's current fast bowling attack - VERY WEAK
In ODI's these bowlers will probably get away but in tests you need to get 20 wickets and India doesnt seem to have much in their bowling to make England crumble twice. Vaughan is a pretty decent test player then they have Pieterson, Bell, Collingwood and the new wicket keeper batsman whatever his name is looks good. Strauss is due for some runs now as well.
Personally I would have taken Pathan with the team, yes he was a pedistrian in his last few international but he does have undeniable talent. He proved it at the start of his career. I dont know what exactly went wrong with him, he stopped swinging the bowl, there was no zip in his bowling etc but with Chappel gone he should have been tried. He also give extra cushion to the batting department.
Whatever happened to Nehra and Balaji anyway ? They were decent bowlers plus they had a little bit more speed then the current Indian attack.
Re: India's current fast bowling attack - VERY WEAK
I think there is a lot of potential
we have two top class players in kumble and zaheer
kumble isnt playing against lions and hes the guy who usually finishes the tail
other than those two, sreesanth and munaf patel have a lot of talent, i can see them becoming world class. Sreesanth just coming back from injury, and munaf still recovering from his injury. Ive read Pathan is ready to go as well now. Once we get our players fit and give them some match practice, i think we will have a high quality attack
But for this tour, i agree, we are lacking some firepower to take those 20 wickets, someones gotta pull some magic
Re: India's current fast bowling attack - VERY WEAK
Sreesanth and munaf patel have a lot of talent, i can see them becoming world class.
More power to you, and all that there is, Pidbull Jee. The likes of Sreesanth, VRV, RP and even Munaf have been and will be repackaged in the future which will render them completely useless. World class or not, if they continue the way they are shaped now, they will have a hard time bowling against the batsmen of a decent domestic side. After witnessing the world-class abilities of the likes of Debashish Mohanty and Abey Kuruvilla, I think even the highly influential position of carrying water, drinks and a warm towel would not list the above two if they were the last two fast bowlers sending thunderbolts at a pedestrian speed.
In short, Munaf could definitely go either way. Sreesanth and co. seem far from hopeless. I just don't see venom in either one's bowling capabilities.
Re: India's current fast bowling attack - VERY WEAK
^sorry what do you mean repackaged?
just to clarify, they are far from world class, but i think they have potential. Have you watched sreesanth bowl? theres a definite sense of venom and passion, the way the ball comes out of his hand is great to watch. munaf, i can agree, laidback fellow, but hes got great skill in controlling his bowling and add the ability to swing the ball both ways will trouble batsmen. they are not mo asif but lets see what becomes of them and how they adapt
Re: India's current fast bowling attack - VERY WEAK
Have you watched sreesanth bowl? theres a definite sense of venom and passion
The only "venom" I have seen is in his eyes when he stares at the batsman after delivering the ball. And even that is anything but scary.
Also all the naatak he does while walking back to his run-up, crossing himself, talking to self and doing a mini-pooja at the top of his mark makes me cringe.
Re: India's current fast bowling attack - VERY WEAK
Also all the naatak he does while walking back to his run-up, crossing himself, talking to self and doing a mini-pooja at the top of his mark makes me cringe.
Doesnt every Indian player make you cringe? I mean every post you make you whine about how much you hate the indian cricket team right...:)
Re: India's current fast bowling attack - VERY WEAK
Doesnt every Indian player make you cringe? I mean every post you make you whine about how much you hate the indian cricket team right...:)
You are right...if it was not for players like Yuvraj, Dravid, Zaheer, Pathan, Kumble and the stylish Laxman..., I would stop following Indian Cricket.
Pathan laao, desh bachao. An out-of-form Pathan is better than in-form Ishant Sharma. Plus the man can bat better than some of our top-order batsman (esp Jaffer).
btw, I don't hate RP Singh that much. The only problem with this guy is he can be erratic at times.
Let me tell you something, if an Indian medium fast bowler (like Sreesanth, Bose, Ishant etc) don't succeed in the English conditions, there is no chance they are likely to succeed anywhere else. An England tour has traditionally been a good hunting ground for Indian medium-pacers. Decent (but not great) bowlers like Roger Binny, Madan Lal, Balwinder Sandhu...later Venkatesh Prasad, Prabhakar , even Ganguly etc in the past have excelled in England. The Indian team rode on its medium-pacers to win the World Cup'83 here. So it makes me sad, that the current lot hasn't provided anything of substance so far. Yesterday, a number 8 bastman scored a century against India.
Re: India's current fast bowling attack - VERY WEAK
I think you may be a bit harsh on Sreesanth. For all the jokes we make about Indian fast bowling, he is the only one of the current lot that consistently clocks above 140 in his spells. Can also rely on him to bowl a few wicket-taking deliveries in every spell. Many many skills he still needs to learn, but he is young and will learn. Has played 8 tests so far, mostly all away tests (in Windies and South Africa), and I couldnt find any other Indian bowler with even close to comparable numbers in his first 8 tests. Excellent strike rate, two 8-wicket hauls, one man of the match. Sure, too small a sample to base a career prediction on, but at the same time, nothing to sneeze at either.
Agreed, he is eccentric and maybe a bit too aggressive sometimes for his own good. But this is a young fast bowler we are talking of, not a Sunday school choir boy. His antics may not always be in good taste, but he brings a "mongrel" scrappy quality to the table that India has always lacked. Imran used to say that fast bowlers have to be nurtured. My fear is that rather than nurturing this (admittedly eccentric, even immature, maybe) talent, our establishment and love of conformity will end up dumping him or worse, converting him into a zen master like Dravid (one of my favorite players, BTW, just not my ideal for a fast bowler temperament). I think he would fare much better across the border - one of Pakistani cricket's biggest strengths has been its ability to nurture "attitude" as opposed to stifling it.
Re: India's current fast bowling attack - VERY WEAK
....one of Pakistani cricket's biggest strengths has been its ability to nurture "attitude" as opposed to stifling it.
I am all for that "attitude".
In fact that was the reason why I liked Manoj Prabhakar. And there was a time when I wished Srinath and Prasad had some of that. Srinath esp was a fairly decent bowler but lacked the aggression in temperament.
Having said the above, the "attitude" can only take you so far, if you don't have the "bowling" to go with it. I have not delved into Sreesanth's statistics (like you seem to have - also statistics can be very misleading), but I have not been impressed with his bowling after the initial promise he displayed in the Pak tour.
Re: India's current fast bowling attack - VERY WEAK
Aside from the topic :
I have been crying out loud about this for very long, but nobody is bothered...Zaheer Khan is a very under-rated big-hitter. It pains me immensely when Chawla and Pawar are sent to bat before him in the slog overs.
Sample this from today :
79.6Rashid to Khan, FOUR, Zaheer ends the day with a four. It was a tossed-up delivery on the middle line, a bit too full and Zaheer smoked it over mid on.
79.5Rashid to Khan, no run, leans forward to defend a legbreak on the off stump line
79.4Rashid to Khan, FOUR, fires it in quickly, from the front of the hand, outside off stump and Zaheer goes back to cut it through backward point
79.3Rashid to Khan, SIX, tossed-up, outside off stump, not much turn and Zaheer stretched forward to loft it over long off
79.1Rashid to Dhoni, 1 run, slightly short on the middle, lapped towards
78.6Bopara to Khan, FOUR, full and on the legs, flicked away for a boundary.
Re: India's current fast bowling attack - VERY WEAK
...the "attitude" can only take you so far, if you don't have the "bowling" to go with it. I have not delved into Sreesanth's statistics (like you seemed to have - also statistics can be very misleading), but I have not been impressed with his bowling after the initial promise he displayed in the Pak tour.
Sreesanth's last 3 tests were in South Africa. In the first test at Joburg, after India batted first and made 250 odd (against Pollock, Ntini, Nel and co), Sreesanth took 5 wickets as we bowled out SA for 70 or so. Took 8 wickets in that match (MOM) and also in the next test. One of the very very rare occasions (esp outside India) that we had an Indian fast bowler being the MOM. This was also the series when we had also those ultra-technical articles from Donald and Richards etc about Sreesanth's seam position and how upright it was. So actually, his latest results are what are most encouraging - his initial tests, while promising, were somewhat more ho-hum.