A fast bowler India might have had

[express bowling]

How do you rate Sandeep Sharma?

I feel he gets carted on flat tracks but with a pitch that has bite, I feel he is a serious threat to everyone.

Does he have any future?

I was talking about another older Sandeep Sharma who played around 2000.

I have not seen the new Sandeep Sharma enough in non-T20 matches to form a clear opinion.

His ability to swing the ball  both ways  is obviously above average and he should be a handful in conditions which aid swing bowling or seam movement...like England. On flatter tracks it seems that he has to improve further. I think his pace was dropping off a lot in later spells.

What's your opinion about him ?

Edited November 1, 2015 by express bowling

[Rightarmfast]

RightarmFast...have you noticed that Umesh Yadav has been classified as Fast-medium by Espncricinfo ?

Is he? Thats superfunny! He is one of the consistently fast bowler of the world, considering there arent many around. And thats exactly what I meant earlier! its the perception :)

[sensible-indian]

I was talking about another older Sandeep Sharma who played around 2000.

I have not seen the new Sandeep Sharma enough in non-T20 matches to form a clear opinion.

His ability to swing the ball  both ways  is obviously above average and he should be a handful in conditions which aid swing bowling or seam movement...like England. On flatter tracks it seems that he has to improve further. I think his pace was dropping off a lot in later spells.

What's your opinion about him ?

I think if he can figure to be like Bhuvi in flatter tracks, we have found a SUPER SOLID bowler to be in the squad.

I am tired of alternating between ineffective trundlers and brainless spray guns. 

Ishant is solid.

Shami is a solid guy (assuming he doesn't regress).

Bhuvi needs to work on his wicket taking skills early on. Its been a long time since he really took proper wickets upfront.

Have to look at some domestic pacers to build up the squad. Yadav, Aaron must be asked to improve their accuracy or face missing playing XI.

[express bowling]

I think if he can figure to be like Bhuvi in flatter tracks, we have found a SUPER SOLID bowler to be in the squad.

I am tired of alternating between ineffective trundlers and brainless spray guns. 

Ishant is solid.

Shami is a solid guy (assuming he doesn't regress).

Bhuvi needs to work on his wicket taking skills early on. Its been a long time since he really took proper wickets upfront.

Have to look at some domestic pacers to build up the squad. Yadav, Aaron must be asked to improve their accuracy or face missing playing XI.

I agree. We need some solid pacers who can be depended upon...who combine decent accuracy and decent pace/bounce.

Ishant and Shami are our best bets as of now..although, even Shami should improve his accuracy without dropping pace and increase his stamina.

Umesh and Aaron need to practice bowling a lot more....they may become better under Kohli who is a motivational captain for quick bowlers.

I would be nice if another tall pacer is introduced into the team...someone who gets bounce at decent pace ...like Aniket Chowdhury maybe  ( we have not seen him much ) or someone else who is better. 

Bhuvi is trying hard to improve and I hope he gets back his accuracy. He is an honest trier.

 

Edited November 1, 2015 by express bowling

[player]

seam bowler send longer spells in india now,than in the past .solkar and Abid aLI  only send 18 balls and spinner take over . Irfan pathan start well but his career ends fast, Praveen kumar and Balaji never get enough opportunity, number 7 position open in ODi But india should try allrounder more than someone  sarfaraz khan or suryakant yadav or Deepak hooda

Nathu singh impressive for his first 6 over spell in Mumbai yesterday but india should inspire Rishi Dhawan,Hardik pandya for all rounder job for the future. Gurkeerat recently doing good with both bat and ball, but poor  fellow not get his chance just like Naman..

About Umesh Yadav , he reminds me of Umer Akmal, who is always failed to impress in his limited opportunity.i think ishant sharma is far more better bowler under kohli sir.Avind srinath has good pace plus he can send spin too, Not many people knows but jimmy Anderson bowls off spin sometime and got wicket in test.

its such a great achivment by kapil dev that he took 434 test wickets including many in india.

Edited November 1, 2015 by player

[maniac]

People where crying about injustice to Pankaj singh and he had an aura built around him....I called him for what he is an average but good utility domestic trundlers and he did not disappoint.

 

ankola had enough chances and he was a poor fielder and injury prone....there was a reason why srinath was backed despite him not having a god father either like all those other names... It is clear to the naked eye who is genuinely good and who is just a myth.

 

as far as zaidi and prashant vaidya go I seriously doubt they were world beaters but in zaidis case he should have gotten a shot when he topped the bowling averages but how good he was is very subjective.

[express bowling]

Any of you guys remember Rakesh Patel from Baroda ?  He bowled at a lively fast-medium pace, was about 6 feet tall, could swing the ball both ways and looked like a skillful pacer. Played in the early 2000s. 

He never played for India...don't know whether it is because of injuries. I always felt that he should have got a few chances to show his mettle.

[rkt.india]

Yes. He was bowling at the age of 36 when I saw him in ICL. He never got any chance. He was a successful FC bowler.

[rkt.india]

Patel was once called up as a cover in on 2007 or 2002 England tour if I remember when someone fell ill. Patel was playing club cricket there.

[Mosher]

This is a great thread. I got to know about many lesser known Indian fast bowlers.

Edited November 6, 2015 by Mosher

[express bowling]

Since we are discussing relatively unknown pacy bowlers....David Johnson was a gutsy pacer who bowled with a lot of effort.  He played 2 tests in 1996. He was a short man and looked lively in terms of pace. Bowled a lot of bouncers. His bowling style was like a fast bowler ...don't know how quick he actually was. But surely at least fast-medium.

He had a First Class average of 28.6...so not bad.

[Rightarmfast]

Sadly no. He was the only pacer in India who came up with a lot of hype. Indians hailed David Johnson as the world's fastest before he made his debut. Alas, he was only medium pace and there was a story going around in the Indian team that Johnson runs faster than he bowls!

[express bowling]

Sadly no. He was the only pacer in India who came up with a lot of hype. Indians hailed David Johnson as the world's fastest before he made his debut. Alas, he was only medium pace and there was a story going around in the Indian team that Johnson runs faster than he bowls!

He was very far from being the fastest bowler in the world,,,but not medium pace...even that was an over-reaction that people showed at that time because they were disappointed he was not very fast ...he perhaps bowled 130 to 140 k.

[Rightarmfast]

Yeah, would have touched 140's. But I remember, he was tipped as being the fastest in the world in Indian media before his debut.

 

[express bowling]

On Sunday, November 08, 2015 at 11:23 AM, MultiB48 said:

of all the  videos i have seen from the 80s chetan sharma looked the sharpest

After Kapil had his knee surgery in 1984 , his pace dropped off quite a bit. He was the fastest among Indians and  lively fast-medium paced in absolute terms between 1978 and 1984.

After that, the fastest Indian between 1986 to 1988 was Raju Kulkarni. But, he did not play much for India. Among the regulars, Chetan was the fastest Indian pacer between 1986 to 1988. These 3 years or thereabouts, he was quite lively paced. He was so short ( maybe 5'5" ) it created a problem for him unless he was playing in England etc.

Edited June 25, 2017 by express bowling

[express bowling]

 sharma looked the best of all the lesser pacers to me ,kulkarni's action was not very good, he used to fall away a lot.

Agreed. the best of the second-rung pacers of the '80s .But the whole bunch of Binny,  Madan, Ghavri, Sandhu, Chetan, Prabhakar etc. were very ordinary. None of them managed even 3 wickets per test match.

Chetan ended up with 61 wickets from 23 test matches @ 2.65 wickets per test match.  Roger Binny got 1.74 wickets per test match but still played 27 tests. Will give you an idea about the support pacers we had apart from the great Kapil Dev.

[Rightarmfast]

I remember a TV interview in which Chetan Sharma was asked if he considered himself an ' Out n out genuine fast bowler' ( it must also be on youtube somewhere ). Although, I think he must have been about 125-130's. It was his slingy action which gave the impression he was bowling faster. But he was a decent bowler. 

[fineleg]

Tenth Avatar of Vishnu (in ODIs, and in a Test here or there, like Adelaide 6-wickets) bowled nippy, though 135s, rarely 140?

Edited November 8, 2015 by fineleg

[A_Saagar]

On 10/27/2015 at 9:26 AM, Malcolm Merlyn said:

Ashish Winston Zaidi......What a tragedy

Many Indian cricketers from 90's used to say that Ashish Winston Zaidi from UP was a complete Fast Medium bowler. He was capable of bowling long spells and was considered very skillful. Cannot believe that he never played for India.

 

[Rightarmfast]

Not just Zaidi, there were a few more genuinely fast bowlers in India then. None of them could make it big because of Indian Board and people like Kapil Dev.