A tale of Indian fast bowling: Where it all really started? - Onkar Karandikar

As a kid, I used to listen to the stories of the fearsome fast bowling quartet West Indies had in 70's and 80's and of brilliant spin bowling quartet that India had in 60's and 70's from my parents. 

I myself grew up watching likes of Brett Lee and Shane Bond terrorizing batsmen with their genuine pace and watching Kumble and Harbhajan spinning web around batsmen as well.

I always dreamt about Indian Cricket team having best fast bowling attack in the world, but never actually thought this would become reality so soon.

This doesn't mean India never had good fast bowlers before, but we never had 4-5 fast bowlers together at their peak with level of fitness, consistency, discipline, attitude and pace that the current crop has. We had Kapil Dev in 80's, then Srinath in 90's and Zaheer Khan in 2000's- these three were consistent and played for long time, others played for brief periods of time and perished. Some due to lack of fitness, some due to lack of pace, some due to their antics.

We could not have imagined in our wildest dreams about Indian fast bowlers taking 20 wickets on Indian pitches. Virat Kohli deserves a lot of credit for seeing this dream about India having best fast bowling attack and instilling it in his bowlers, backing them and getting best out of them and thereby taking the pitches, conditions and tosses out of equation and playing like champion side in any conditions.

Ishant Sharma, JaspritBumrah and Mohammad Shami together took 142 wickets in 10 test matches between 2018 and 2019 and it is world record. Their averages and strike rates were also brilliant. Umesh Yadav's numbers at home in last two years have been exceptional- 43 wickets in 9 tests despite being in and out of the team. Bhuvneshwar Kumar is struggling with back pain at the moment, but he's been around for a while and in conditions conducive to seam and swing bowling, he's as good as anyone in the world.

In addition to these top 5 bowlers, there are players like Navdeep Saini, Shardul Thakur and Deepak Chahar waiting in the wing. Young lads like Kamlesh Nagarkotti are coming through the ranks. Very promising picture overall- one thing that bothers me is except for Khaleel Ahmad, we haven't really found left arm fast bowlers in recent years. In last decade we had 4 left arm bowler- Zaheer Khan, Ashish Nehra, RP Singh and Irfan Pathan. There is nothing wrong with playing all right arm bowlers, but having left arm bowler add variation to attack and gives more attacking options.

We are lucky to witness this era of genuine fast bowlers coming from India and it leads me to one question- where it all really started?

If we open the history book of Indian fast/medium pace bowlers, it will take us back to pre-independence era. We had two notable bowlers back then- Mohammad Nissar (who, in his first game, had dismissed legendary English batsman Herbert Sutcliffe) and Amar Singh. In 60's we had genuine fast bowler in Ramakant Desai, who had given legendary West Indian bastmen like Rohan Kanhai run for their money.

These stories do make us proud, but if we have to name one bowler with whom the revolution started- it is Kapil Dev. 

He was truly great and world class fast bowler. Let alone his batting-fielding prowess and all-rounder status, even if he was just a specialist bowler, he could have walked into any of the Indian teams ever played till date and arguably in any team in world as well. He had pace to hurry batsmen and had genuine beautiful out swinger as well. He retired with 434 test wickets- which is still a record for Indian fast bowler and probably will remain for a long time, because for a fast bowler to remain fit for as long as he did is very difficult, he was natural athlete.

There was one more important thing that happened in same era that gave impetus to fast bowling revolution in India- MRF Pace foundation started in 1987 under tutelage of Australian legend Dennis Lilee and now guided by his compatriot Glenn McGrath. A lot of bowlers have come through it over the years and some of them have gone on to play for India.

We had medium pace bowlers like Roger Binny, Madan Lal, Balvinder Singh Sandhu in 80s along with Kapil Dev and they were effective too. We have had genuine swing bowlers like Ajit Agerkar, Praveen Kumar, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, R P Singh over the years and they did produce some important performances. Some bowlers like Irfan Pathan and Shantakumaran Sreesanth had genuine pace when they first burst onto the scene and they also had ability to swing the ball both ways. Who can forget Irfan's hat-trick vs Pakistan with scoreboard showing 0-3 and Sreesanth dislodging stumps of Gilchrist and Hayden in semi-final of T20 WC 2007 or his steamy bouncer that woke up Jack Kallis from his sleep and made him arc his back like a cross-bow. He also had one of the best seam presentations and beautiful out swinger that you rarely see these days. Point is promise was there, but with whatever reasons they didn't become the world class bowlers we thought they could. Ajit Agarkar had record in white ball cricket, but he could not reflect that in red ball cricket except for that 6 wicket haul in Adelaide. RP Singh too had great run in T20 WC in 2007, but he too disappeared quickly. Ashish Nehra had so many injuries that meant he did not play regularly, but he produced one of the best performances in ODI cricket with that 6 wicket haul vs England in 2003 WC, but again could not reflect that in test cricket.

For a long time, Zaheer Khan was a lone warrior on fast bowling front. He had genuine pace when he started, then as his pace declined with age he added other skills in hir armour, he could swing ball both ways, he developed knuckle ball, and he used to hide the ball in other hand to deceive batsmen. He was first bowler after Kapil Dev and Javagal Srinath to have equally good record in longer and shorter formats of the game.

In 2007-08, came Ishant Sharma, who started his career by giving nightmares to Ricky Ponting. He didn't have control initially and frequently drifted onto the pads of right hand batsmen due to his natural wrist position and despite his efforts he didn't get as many wickets and often relied on bowling short and hitting the deck hard, it did get him wickets, but not as many as he should have. He still produced memorable match winning spells like the one in 2014 Lord's test 4th Innings. The Ishant Sharma 2.0 that we are seeing right now is completely different. He is disciplined, he has control, he doesn't give anything away, he pitches the ball on good length and even fuller if conditions are conducive, he's leading the young bowlers like an experienced campaigner that he is.

Another bowler who had pace, but didn't have control was Umesh Yadav. He actually has one of the most simple and uncomplicated bowling actions, he could move the ball both ways. He was very unlucky on some occasions with bad slip fielding or umpiring errors, but more than that he didn't get as many wickets because he didn't produce as many wicket-taking deliveries. He too has changed in last 2-3 years. He often remains on bench and is picked if someone is injured, but whenever he gets chances, he reaps wickets. Especially on Indian pitches, he has been absolutely brilliant.

Then comes a bowler who probably has the best seam presentation in the world, can move ball both ways, can hit the deck hard, produces more wicket taking deliveries than anyone else and now with the desciplined attitude, he's literally taking wickets in bulk. His name is Mohammad Shami.

Now last but not the least- Jasprit Bumrah. This awesome journey of Indian fast bowling has now reached its peak with bowler who is genuinely world class, has discipline and consistency like a machine, has genuine pace, has impeccable control over line and length like no one, can take wickets, can stop runs and within 3 years he's established himself as best bowler in the world across all 3 formats. If he remains fit and let us everyone wish that he will remain fit for a long time, he will go on to become one of the greatest fast bowlers in the history of world cricket. He's already impressed West Indian fast bowling legends Andy Roberts and Curtly Ambrose with his ability. In his first season of test cricket he's taken 62 wickets in 12 test matches with an average of 19 which is unthinkable for Indian fast bowler. He's played those 12 games in 4 countries overseas and managed to take fifers in all 4 countries. He is yet to play a home test. When he first came in lime light as rookie fast bowler with awkward action playing for Mumbai Indians in IPL, no one would have thought this guy would go on to become best bowler in the world, but within few years he broke into Indian limited overs team and inevitably into the test team. He's to bowling what Virat Kohli is to batting. He has got that hunger and fire in his eyes. He does not say anything to batsmen, he smiles even if catches are dropped and gets back to his mark and bowls again until he gets wicket. He recently had his first long injury break and now he'll be back and raring to go. I can't wait to see him in action.

Through this article I don't mean to undermine the contribution of Ashwin and Jadeja towards Indian test cricket. They have been world class and their work has been invaluable! They have taken over 550 test wickets between them and won India so many matches.

But, as Indian cricket fan watching current Indian test team winning games on home turf without any significant contribution of spinners is refreshing, not that they could not contribute, they didn't even get chance as fast bowlers finished things quickly. This might be due to lack of quality batting in SA and Bangladesh, but you can't take away anything from Indian pacers. 

It will be interesting to see how India's fast bowlers perform against the Australian team that now has Steve Smith and Marnus Labuschagne. But, we will have to wait for almost a year to witness that. With T20 WC coming up towards the end of this season, there is not much of test cricket lined up for India except for 2 tests against New Zealand.

I have praised current Indian pace attack so much and mentioned some greats in past, but to be honest- contribution of each and every medium pace/fast bowler who had played for India was important. As they say next generation is better because they stand on shoulders of previous. There is no summit without the base.