List of individuals who deserve credit for India’s fast bowling?

[maniac]

On field or off the field. 

 

I mean someone needs to get credit for this. Our pacers are not only good but their fitness is off the charts.
 

for example whose brainchild was the MRF academy?

 

before dravid who deserves credit for the huge influx of talent etc etc 

 

Who started reaching out to the non-power centers of Indian cricket to start recruiting talent?

 

 

I am sure there are a lot of unsung heroes 

 

Is it TA Sekhar,Bharat Arun, Dennis Lillee, Lalit Modi ( for the IPl model that brought all these world class fitness trainers and coaches), Greg Chappell for being the first to go into the non-power centers to recruit talent- Sreeshanth (Kerala), Dhoni (Jharkhand), Raina,RP ( UP) etc etc. or is it the U-19 coaches before Dravid, Kohli, Ganguly?

 

Edited November 26, 2019 by maniac

[rkt.india]

It's the emergence of Umesh Yadav and Varun, the hype generated about them and visibility through IPL. These two came along together and for the first time, we had two bowlers hitting 150 kph together. Them being picked for pace which resulted in more youngsters wanting to bowl quick and break in team India and IPL.

[maniac]

8 minutes ago, rkt.india said:

It's the emergence of Umesh Yadav and Varun, the hype generated about them and visibility through IPL. These two came along together and for the first time, we had two bowlers hitting 150 kph together. Them being picked for pace which resulted in more youngsters wanting to bowl quick and break in team India and IPL.

What about the sudden rise of Pathan,Balaji,Sreeshanth,RP,Munaf etc who Started helping us win tests overseas and important tournaments?

 

Also the batch prior to that Zak,Nehra,Agarkar

 

 

[rkt.india]

12 hours ago, maniac said:

What about the sudden rise of Pathan,Balaji,Sreeshanth,RP,Munaf etc who Started helping us win tests overseas and important tournaments?

 

Also the batch prior to that Zak,Nehra,Agarkar

 

 

They didn't start the pace competition. Neither did they last long enough to inspire next gen. Don't think anyone in India made agarkar, nehra their idol. Zak yes but he eventually became fast medium, not enough to inspire people.

[Khota]

IPL

[Vilander]

Umesh and Aaron, for inspiring a gen of pacers who primarily rely on pace.

 

Indian TM ( Kohli/Shastri /Arun) for enabling them

 

NCA and other fitness institutions for enabling them.

[Vilander]

Honorable mention

 

Express Bowling

RKT

RAF

 

for wishing this thing to happen. 

 

from ICF 

[gakgupta]

MSD deserves lots of credit....



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[maniac]

On 11/26/2019 at 8:36 AM, rkt.india said:

It's the emergence of Umesh Yadav and Varun, the hype generated about them and visibility through IPL. These two came along together and for the first time, we had two bowlers hitting 150 kph together. Them being picked for pace which resulted in more youngsters wanting to bowl quick and break in team India and IPL.

Sure, IPl helps in featuring talents and giving them a platform but this didn’t happen overnight. It was an eventual progress from the days of Ramakant Desai and Karsan Ghavri.

 

Bumrah is probably the only guy from the IPL gen but we started producing good fast bowlers from a grass root levels over the years and it has to do with initiatives taken by BCCI.

 

For example whoever came up with the MRF PCR academy and TA Sekhar deserve a lot more credit than the IPL.

 

 

[maniac]

13 hours ago, rkt.india said:

They didn't start the pace competition. Neither did they last long enough to inspire next gen. Don't think anyone in India made agarkar, nehra their idol. Zak yes but he eventually became fast medium, not enough to inspire people.

No they didn’t but they burst on the scene around the same time and gave us a pool of fast bowlers. From 2000s onwards we had a steady pool. If Zak and Nehra  faded a little after their  initial start, Pathan and Balaji picked up, when they declined, Sreeshanth, RP,Munaf came into the fray, Zak came back and Ishant burst on the scene, so the steady supply has been there over the last few years which has evolved into what we see today.

 

 

[maniac]

1 hour ago, gakgupta said:

MSD deserves lots of credit....



Sent from my Nokia 6.1 using Tapatalk
 

Is that sarcasm

[Gollum]

Since Mahi Bhai didn't give the green signal, Ishu is alive and healthy now.

[R!TTER]

The pacers themselves, then the pitches/conditions followed by the coaches & lastly Brat, not that a**hat drunkard though 

[R!TTER]

DP 

Edited November 27, 2019 by R!TTER

[Gollum]

To trace the origin and the early years of the foundation is to teleport oneself into an India of a different vintage, where the spirit of enterprise remained stifled and where resistance to new ideas was normal. Cricket, particularly fast bowling, was not insulated from the prevailing mindset. In 1987, the late Ravi Mammen, then managing director of the Madras Rubber Factory, decided to swim against the tide. In a country habituated to and obsessed with spin-bowling excellence, Mammen was determined to do his bit for fast bowling.

 

 

Sekhar recounted how India's struggles on pacy and seam-friendly pitches abroad had haunted Mammen. That India didn't have fast bowlers of their own to hit back, Mammen realised, was a deterrent to their chances of winning. While driving his car one day, Mammen, who had represented Tamil Nadu in school cricket, hit upon an idea to solve the problem: start an academy with a good coach to raise an army of world-class fast bowlers.

 

Convinced that Lillee was the best man for the job, Mammen sought the help of Syed Kirmani, the former India wicketkeeper and one of Mammen's contemporaries in school cricket, to act as a go-between. In his letter to Lillee, Kirmani underscored MRF's stature in the tyres business. By that time, MRF had also made a name for itself as a keen backer of sport, particularly cricket and motor sports. Apart from boundary-board sponsorships, there was Sunil Gavaskar endorsing the MRF brand on his headband; in years to come, players like Sachin Tendulkar, Steve Waugh, Brian Lara, Virat Kohli and AB de Villiers would sport the MRF label on their bats. The Pace Foundation was Mammen's pet project and, by extension, an ambitious venture for the MRF group. Lillee called Kirmani expressing interest in the offer, on the condition that all his terms were met.

 

"Whatever Lillee wanted, Ravi Mammen gave him," Sekhar recalls. "Ravi Mammen wanted it to be the best foundation in the world. He was a genius; he used cricket as a medium to reach people. MRF was the first corporate to enter into cricket and make such sponsorships. He used cricket and got a lot of mileage, so other companies started coming into it."

 

Among Lillee's primary requirements was an active first-class or international cricketer - not a long-retired player as a glorified manager - who could bowl and train with the boys. Lillee, in turn, would train that coach. It was then that the former India captain Srinivas Venkataraghavan reached out to Sekhar, who says Madan Lal and Abid Ali were also considered for the role. Venkataraghavan was then the secretary of the Tamil Nadu Cricket Association and was engaged by MRF as a consultant. Sekhar, 32, was at the time playing first-class cricket despite his struggles with a knee injury. While he was initially reluctant to get into coaching, the opportunity to work with a role model was hard to pass up.

 

Very long article......for those interested -> How India got fast

Edited November 27, 2019 by Gollum

[maniac]

Sekhar is to Indian fast bowling what Gopichand is to Indian badminton. What are Sekhar’s genes? 

[maniac]

Also this Mammen guy is an unsung hero

[putrevus]

MRF academy and Mr.Ravi Mammen who just for sake of love of the game invested his time and money.

[Gollum]

Many industrial/IT bigwigs from TN are sponsoring young athletes, giving them exposure. Like Mannan there is a guy called Kailasanathan (Microsense) who is sponsoring young chess talents and hiring the best coaches to train them, including legends like Kramnik and Leko. This was a recent camp in France with the legendary ex-world champion (who dethroned GOAT Kasparov), very expensive affair and may not give returns like cricket....I mean come on in this country more people would know about Ashok Dinda than Viswanathan Anand. 

This will pay dividends in the future. Motorsports, TT, squash, tennis, archery, athletics, rowing, sailing...so many sports where Chennai based bigwigs are giving back to the society even when the beneficiaries aren't from the state. A guy called Parthasarathy sponsored a trip to Japan for our wrestling team recently to train with the Japs and Americans who are overwhelming favorites in the Olympics, I think they are going to France before the Games to train with some European teams. Imagine how beneficial such exposure would be for our athletes !!!! Do organizations like SAI/IOA or Sports Ministry fund them, GHANTA. Pillai something (can't remember but Coimbatore based) did the same for our archery team's trip to South Korea, again South Korea is the greatest archery nation on the planet. More than throwing money such initiatives require lots of will and initiative from our side, honestly we gain more from these camps than those foreign squads purely because of difference in level. Only true sports lovers who also happen to have some $$$, influence can make this possible. 

 

On the contrary I see very little from Mumbai and Gujarat based tycoons when it comes to supporting our sportsmen. Bas Katrina Kaif aur Sallu ke saath party karo, make SRK serve food in your daughter's wedding, get clicked by sleazy journos outside Jannat, Mannat whatever ****. Must be a difference in culture, I think Chennai has a better overall sports culture and more patronage. Remember the much maligned Cement Mama did a lot for cricket for many decades, Srini's brother has contributed generously for Indian squash.

 

Calcutta was the 1st centre in India to professionalize sports, organize leagues etc...max Olympians used to settle in the city  where they spent the rest of their lives.....I remember reading about how Kolkata was house to max Olympic medalists (mostly hockey stars) in India some 15 years back. Now Chennai has firmly taken over the mantle, at a much larger scale and lot more variety of disciplines as well. There won't be enough recognition for what these few guys do and that is the sad part. Their contribution doesn't even make it to local news...have to be dedicated follower of sports to keep track of these things. These Ambanis and Godrejs are all talk, can't they do even a little for sports as part of CSR? Tycoons much smaller than them have contributed much more for Indian sports in their own way...without desiring fame. 

Edited November 27, 2019 by Gollum

[maniac]

^ @Gollum examples include this very thread. People are crediting IPl as changing our fast bowling culture instead of all these unsung heroes.

 

What people fail to realize is that IPl is like a corporate job, if you are good they will pay you, take care of you, once you are done will chew you up and spit you out. What made you land this job is the school,teachers,mentors who shaped you, that’s whom we need to appreciate.

Edited November 27, 2019 by maniac