India Needs a Genuine Pace Attack

Success of a team in cricket is in the hands of opening batsmen and also the pace bowlers. The role of pace bowlers is as important as they can disturb the opponent batsmen with their pace and swing. Indian bowling department is not as impressive as it was in the past. Kapil Dev, a legend, is the best bowler of Indian cricket. In his captaincy India won the world cup in 1983 and it’s purely because of a bowler who cleaned the opponent. Few decades back Javagal Srinath and Venkatesh Prasad were the pace bowlers and they were the successful opening bowling pair for Indian cricket. The variety in their bowling fetched quick wickets and they were responsible for victory.

After their retirement from international cricket the bowling department of India was found helpless. Zaheer Khan is the most reliable pace bowler at present and he is prone to injuries most of the time. The left arm pacer is a perfect attacker with new ball and also expert in reverse and in swing yorkers that can surely clear the defense of a batsmen. There were many bowlers like Ajit Agarkar, Debasis Mohanty, Aavishkar Salvi, Sreesanth and Ashish Nehra who were in the team but couldn’t mark their presence permanently in the squad due to the loss of variety. Indian team suffered a lot without quality bowlers and faced many loses. Javagal Srinath carried the bowling till 2003 world cup. After his retirement there was no strong bowling attack in Indian team.

Irfan Pathan stepped in to the squad as a bowler and surprised everyone with the ability of swinging the ball into the batsman. He was successful in fetching quick wickets but lost his form and is out of squad for long time. Ishanth Sharma and Munaf Patel are the other bowlers picked for Indian squad who were admirable at the beginning but as days passed on they too failed at important situations.

On a whole the team fully relies on Zaheer Khan and his absence is noticed in all series. RP Singh has not found permanent place in the squad and Praveen Kumar is being impressive till now with his ability of swinging in air and troubling the opponent. Mithun another pace bowler has the ability to bowl well and he must be developed to be a star bowler for the team. Pace bowlers are the key players in any match and if players like Praveen Kumar, Mithun, Ishanth Sharma are trained well they could be the best in sharing the bowling attack with Zaheer Khan.

What are your views on Indian pace attack?

India needs an all-rounder

An all-rounder plays a significant role in cricket.

Kallis for South Africa, Michale Clark and Symonds for Australia, Flintoff for England, Malik for Pakistan, Gayle for West Indies, Jacob Oram for New Zealand, Jayasuriya for Sri Lanka have been playing an important role of an all-rounder in their respective teams.

But India lacks a genuine all-rounder.

Almost all teams have a good all-rounder, but India doesn't.

Along with Kapil Dev, the players Mohinder Amarnath, Roger Binny, Ravi Shastri, Madan Lal and Manoj Prabhakar had the capability to change the game either with the bat or with the ball.

After Kapil Dev's retirement, India has been facing this problem of finding a genuine all-rounder.

Robin Singh shined once but out of the team in a short time.

Agarkar and Sreenath had come into the team as all-rounders but settled as bowlers.

Irfan Pathan was thought to be the perfect all-rounder after Kapil Dev..but he is now a total failure in both bowling and batting.

Currently we have Yuvraj, Sehwag, Yusuf Pathan and some others who can fill the fifth bowler's slot.

But what we need is a specific all-rounder who is very good at bowling.

Ravindra Jadeja who got a place in the Indian team as an all-rounder is all set to prove his capabilities in the Sri Lanka tour.

Let's hope Jadeja proves as a worthy successor to Kapil Dev.