Heavily dependent on Bumrah and Siraj, why India face a fast-bowling crisis on the horizon in Test cricket

[rollingstoned]

Heavily dependent on Bumrah and Siraj, why India face a fast-bowling crisis on the horizon in Test cricket

Indian pacers had their moments in the five-Test series in England, with Siraj leading the way, but the assembly line that recently had enviable depth, is not looking good.

 

Written by Sandip G 

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Updated: August 11, 2025 07:59 IST

7 min read

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Jasprit Bumrah with Mohammed Siraj. (FILE photo)

In an early conversation between India’s head coach Gautam Gambhir and Adrian Le Roux, the strength and conditioning coach, it is reliably learned, the latter observed that India’s fast bowlers don’t bowl enough in the nets. Or run.

There was a time when fast bowlers just turned up and bowled in the nets, or clocked several laps around the ground, rather than spend hours in the gym. Andy Roberts, the godfather of West Indies fast bowling phalanx, had once told this masthead: “The reason fast bowlers of this era are getting injured more frequently is because they don’t bowl in the nets as much as we did. We never did gym work, but just hit the nets and bowled with as much intensity as we did during an actual game. Most of their fitness came from bowling and the running sessions.”

And just three Tests into the series against England, India’s fast bowling machinery began to break and creak. Akash Deep sustained a niggle and was ruled out of the Old Trafford game; all-rounder Nitish Kumar Reddy injured his knee; Arshdeep Singh’s tour was over when he picked up an impact injury bowling in the nets before a possible debut in Manchester.

India’s Nitish Kumar Reddy bowls during day one of the Third Rothesay Men’s Test at Lord’s, London, Thursday July 10, 2025. (Bradley Collyer/PA via AP)

The reality for fast bowlers is that they will spend an infinite amount of time suffering, or recovering from, injury during their playing days. But one too many could wreck careers and break teams. Le Roux and Gambhir might devise a revised conditioning and grooming chart, stress on putting in more overs in the nets, the board could insist on coaches at the academies and grassroots to emphasise on bowling and sprinting, apart from gym-work. But changes wouldn’t bear instant fruits, which means India is wading through a fast-bowling crisis. Not yet full-blown, but with potential to explode.

 

Such whispers might seem exaggerated after Mohammed Siraj has produced a marathon solo act to help square a series in England. Yet, Siraj is the metaphor of all that is laudable and lamentable with India’s fast-bowling stocks. Only Siraj endured the rigours of all five Tests. He bowled nearly twice as many as most of his colleagues, and bagged only four fewer wickets than Prasidh Krishna and Akash Deep combined. Workload distribution among fast bowlers in the last two years has been disturbingly inequitable. Since India’s tour of South Africa in 2023-24, Siraj has played 20 Tests and hurled 3144 balls. Jasprit Bumrah has featured in 18 Tests and bowled 3080 balls in this format alone. The next highest is Akash Deep’s 1536. The recurring injuries to Mohammed Shami, whose last Test was the WTC final against Australia in 2023, has overburdened Bumrah and Siraj even more.

Uninspiring new faces

New faces were auditioned—three of India’s last six debutants have been outright pacers—but none had eased the labour on the twin pillars. All three—Akash Deep, Harshit Rana and Anshul Kamboj— capture the diverse insufficiencies of India’s fast bowling. Akash Deep is highly skilled, has dexterous wrists and pace when fully fit, but his intensity faltered after the match-winning concert at Edgbaston. At Lord’s, whether he was carrying an injury or not is uncertain, he was a shadow the breeze that blew over Birmingham. After a niggle he returned for the decider at Oval, but his incision and precision faltered. Fast bowling empires are not built on fragile frames.

India’s Anshul Kamboj bowls a delivery during the second day of the fourth cricket test match between England and India at Emirates Old Trafford, Manchester, England, Thursday, July 24, 2025. (AP Photo/Jon Super)

The team management summoned Kamboj, after impressing the selectors on the domestic circuit and A tours, and handed out the debut cap. But he looked both out-of-pace and out-of-depth. He barely nudged 130 kph, hardly swung the ball and exuded little life or spark. His inadequacies were a damning verdict on India’s fast-bowling stable. “Not many in domestic cricket could touch even 135 kph, the minimum you need in Test cricket,” a worried support staff member said. Those could be counted on one palm of your hand. Avesh Khan, Kuldeep Sen, Arshdeep, Harshit Rana, Khaleel Ahmed… the list stops. None seem primed and ready to meet the demand of Test cricket.

In contrast, at the stroke of this decade, India had a fleet of deluxe seamers-on-the-call. The untiring Umesh Yadav was reduced to guest roles when one of Ishant Sharma, Shami and Bumrah was injured or needed a succour. Bhuveshwar Kumar was considered redundant, Navdeep Saini, Shardul Thakur and Siraj were on the waiting list. A deep reservoir of pace bowlers is always the aspiration of any cricket squad. And, transition was without friction.

Suddenly, there is an acute shortage, comparable to the late 90s, of seamers without pace and verve. India were one Javagal Srinath injury away from cajoling Sourav Ganguly to share the new ball with whoever was available on day. The chartbusters in domestic cricket are largely spinners of the left-arm orthodox variant. The seamers in the top 10 are most military medium pacers. Like Auqib Nabi of Jammu and Kashmir. Consequently, instincts, fleeting impressions, and gut-feeling instigate selectors to fast-track raw ones in the hope that they would seamlessly blend to international cricket.

Expediting Harshit Rana before he was ripe embodies the selectors’ helplessness. The Delhi seamer had featured in less than 10 games when hurried into debuting in Perth, in a series opener no less. He produced fire and bark on debut, but soon fizzled out, betraying the rough edges that need smoothening in domestic cricket. Contrastingly, Siraj had six seasons of domestic toil on his ledger when he debuted in Melbourne, 2020. Akash Deep was a Bengal regular when he earned the India nod. Thrown into the deep end prematurely, he combusted.

The rare seamers endowed with pace, like Umran Malik and Mayank Yadav, parachuted to fame through IPL, are unaccustomed to red-ball rigours. Malik, with just 12 first-class games to his name, last turned up in a Ranji Trophy game in February 2024. Mayank’s lone appearance came in 2022. That India’s is an ageing group aggravates the deficiency. Shami is 34, Bumrah turns 32 and would be a casualty of workload juggle; Siraj is 31. Prasidh and Akash Deep, at 28 and 29, are not too young either. In short, they have only one dependable quick, Siraj. And it wouldn’t be long before his body too begins to rebel, if he does not get the timely breaks.

Worryingly, the spin department too is not tumbling over with riches. The left-arm spin is thriving, as they had been through decades, but there is hardly an off-spinner to challenge Washington Sundar or a wrist-spinner to keep Kuldeep Yadav on the toes. A long home season would mask the cracks—India next play Tests outside Asia in November 2026, against New Zealand—but there are enough concerns, both immediate and long term, to keep Gambhir and Co occupied and worried in the coming months.

Indian pacers’ workload since December 26, 2023 (balls bowled in Tests)

Mohammed Siraj	3144
Jasprit Bumrah	3080
Akash Deep	1536
Prasidh Krishna	960
Nitish Kumar Reddy	432

[Manucrick]

Avesh Have a good fc record 

[Sooda]

Kuldeep Sen doesn't even get picked for Zone. 

[ungboysj]

It always looks like this in transition and then people come in

Edited August 11, 2025 by ungboysj

[Lone Wolf]

Kuldeep Sen, Harshit Rana and Yudhvir Singh all can sustain the demands for Test cricket.

 

But if selectors are hell bent on picking up trash like Kamboj and untested medium Pacers like Arshdeep sums up the thought process 

 

That being said a good article highlighting the crisis.

 

Wish it was on Indian Express or Hindustan Times to grab more eyeballs.

[figo6762]

Article is should also publish month to month strike rate of these bowlers .. you will find that the selectors persisted with bowlers coz they had a good month ..  and then bowl them to injury ..

 

rather than lack of depth this shows lack for foresight .. which has always been the plague of Indian cricket 

[tweaker]

1 hour ago, rollingstoned said:

Heavily dependent on Bumrah and Siraj, why India face a fast-bowling crisis on the horizon in Test cricket

Because there is no foresight from any of selectors, coaches, team management, captain etc.

 

Duleep.trophy is going to start and see the names of the pacers in the list.

Almost 120 players are selected from each zone and we can guage how much everyone is serious about fast bowlers.

Kuldeep Sen is in reserve.Nobody knows there exist a fast bowler by the name Karthik Tyagi.

Why can't Agarkar makes is certain to play all the fast bowlers bowling at 140 k in every Duleep Trophy matches.

[rollingstoned]

1 hour ago, Lone Wolf said:

Wish it was on Indian Express or Hindustan Times to grab more eyeballs.

It's from Indian express. 

[cowboysfan]

BCCI needs to develop fast bowlers maybe at Blore training center,last few seasons have been a dud and the only guy to emerge was Kambhoj.

[Lord]

Injuries.

 

There is enough talent but most of it is on injury bed. NCA also is incompetent

[singhvivek141]

BCCI is just another set of jokers like most of our govt offices who will sit on their couch, and farting on their chairs with butt halfway in the air.

 

All this artificially created crisis is just coz the BCCI is run by the retards who are only good for negotiating with the sponsors (courtesy of our population), but have zero sense to explore and facilitate the bowlers.

 

Kuldeep Sen was injured in 2022 during Bangaldesh match, till 2024 IPL he was just moving in and out of the team coz he was never fit courtesy of the incompetent NCA and state boards.

 

Yudhvir, has been toiling since 2020-21...never was a Ranji rwgular. Last season is when Umran was injured and he got an opportunity to become the first change bowler for J&K...and became the star performer with ball and occasionally with bat.

 

No one knows where are Raj Bawa & Hangargekar...no news on inclusion of Gurnoor who is just 25. Likes of Mayank are flying to NZ coz morons of NCA cant identify the problem and just rely on "tweaking" his action. Himanshu Chauhan after his sensational season in 2023 has been out of contention, playing only DPL (the format which simply dont suit his style of bowling).

 

Tyagi, Sushant, Nagarkoti, Raj Limbani, Naman Tiwari, Ishan Porel, Yarra Prithviraj...so many fast bowlers who are either lost in the system or have just succumb to injuries coz BCCI never show any interest in their well being. Soon Eden Apple Tom too will join them, which BCCI will bring their favourties from MI & CSK quota.

 

 

[Suhaan]

14 minutes ago, singhvivek141 said:

Tyagi, Sushant, Nagarkoti, Raj Limbani, Naman Tiwari, Ishan Porel, Yarra Prithviraj...so many fast bowlers who are either lost in the system or have just succumb to injuries coz BCCI never show any interest in their well being. Soon Eden Apple Tom too will join them, which BCCI will bring their favourties from MI & CSK quota.

We loose most number of fast bowlers nearly at the same rate(or more) we produce due to our dihati or you may call it batsmen biased cunning attitude 

Not like we don't produce 

No other cricket playing nation looses that many even if they do they have plan B in place to fill the gap and they chalk out plans to maintain their fast bowling supply chain but we aren't we just play them for the sake of it,who will get a guy like Kamboj fly to Eng and bowl at 120+,this is pure disgrace,we don't like aggression 

We like silky touch elegant harmless batting and bowling

Edited August 12, 2025 by Suhaan

[The Realist]

Zero succession planning.

 

Literally wait for the oldies to go jnto terminal decline before attempting to do anything. 

 

 

[Strangering]

3 hours ago, The Realist said:

Zero succession planning.

 

Literally wait for the oldies to go jnto terminal decline before attempting to do anything. 

 

 

I don't think that's true. Many other bowlers have been given chances. Harshit, Akashdeep, Anshul, Reddy, Prasidh etc. Just because Bumrah and Siraj are the mainstays, doesn't mean 3rd and 4th options aren't availed for other/newer options. Its a different story that none of them have consistently impressed 

[Trichromatic]

There was a time when many pacers were emerging, but none was world beater or long lasting. Even then they used to have good pace and could perform well for an year or two.

 

What changed?

[singhvivek141]

13 hours ago, Trichromatic said:

There was a time when many pacers were emerging, but none was world beater or long lasting. Even then they used to have good pace and could perform well for an year or two.

 

What changed?

You can launch one car after the other every month as a manufacturer. But if your service centers are limited, people will hesitate to buy those.
Google Pixels phones are loved by Indians, but very few buy them due to lack of service center operations.

Same is the case with fast bowlers, we do produce them, but if they get injured, the local service shops (NCA) can never bring them back to 100% efficiency. 

[G_B_]

To be fair England too struggled.

 

I think india play 5 match series away only with aus n england. Rest is 3 matches. At home spinners bowl. So bowlers not used to it.

 

There were other factors:

 

1) The lack of bowling by spinners caused issues for our pacers. Would be interesting how many overs spinners bowled last tour which also finished 2-2.

 

2) 23 of 25 days equivalent of cricket. Last tour had plenty of rain breaks. Usually ecb assumes 6 days lost due to rain.

 

3) Heatwave and bowling in temps above 30 degrees. This temp in uk is equivalent to 40 in india. 

 

4) Compressed tests for the 100. See point 2. 

 

[G_B_]

On 8/11/2025 at 2:13 PM, rollingstoned said:

Heavily dependent on Bumrah and Siraj, why India face a fast-bowling crisis on the horizon in Test cricket

Indian pacers had their moments in the five-Test series in England, with Siraj leading the way, but the assembly line that recently had enviable depth, is not looking good.

 

Written by Sandip G 

follow

 

 

 

 

Updated: August 11, 2025 07:59 IST

7 min read

• 
• 
• 
• 
•  

Jasprit Bumrah with Mohammed Siraj. (FILE photo)

In an early conversation between India’s head coach Gautam Gambhir and Adrian Le Roux, the strength and conditioning coach, it is reliably learned, the latter observed that India’s fast bowlers don’t bowl enough in the nets. Or run.

There was a time when fast bowlers just turned up and bowled in the nets, or clocked several laps around the ground, rather than spend hours in the gym. Andy Roberts, the godfather of West Indies fast bowling phalanx, had once told this masthead: “The reason fast bowlers of this era are getting injured more frequently is because they don’t bowl in the nets as much as we did. We never did gym work, but just hit the nets and bowled with as much intensity as we did during an actual game. Most of their fitness came from bowling and the running sessions.”

And just three Tests into the series against England, India’s fast bowling machinery began to break and creak. Akash Deep sustained a niggle and was ruled out of the Old Trafford game; all-rounder Nitish Kumar Reddy injured his knee; Arshdeep Singh’s tour was over when he picked up an impact injury bowling in the nets before a possible debut in Manchester.

India’s Nitish Kumar Reddy bowls during day one of the Third Rothesay Men’s Test at Lord’s, London, Thursday July 10, 2025. (Bradley Collyer/PA via AP)

The reality for fast bowlers is that they will spend an infinite amount of time suffering, or recovering from, injury during their playing days. But one too many could wreck careers and break teams. Le Roux and Gambhir might devise a revised conditioning and grooming chart, stress on putting in more overs in the nets, the board could insist on coaches at the academies and grassroots to emphasise on bowling and sprinting, apart from gym-work. But changes wouldn’t bear instant fruits, which means India is wading through a fast-bowling crisis. Not yet full-blown, but with potential to explode.

 

Such whispers might seem exaggerated after Mohammed Siraj has produced a marathon solo act to help square a series in England. Yet, Siraj is the metaphor of all that is laudable and lamentable with India’s fast-bowling stocks. Only Siraj endured the rigours of all five Tests. He bowled nearly twice as many as most of his colleagues, and bagged only four fewer wickets than Prasidh Krishna and Akash Deep combined. Workload distribution among fast bowlers in the last two years has been disturbingly inequitable. Since India’s tour of South Africa in 2023-24, Siraj has played 20 Tests and hurled 3144 balls. Jasprit Bumrah has featured in 18 Tests and bowled 3080 balls in this format alone. The next highest is Akash Deep’s 1536. The recurring injuries to Mohammed Shami, whose last Test was the WTC final against Australia in 2023, has overburdened Bumrah and Siraj even more.

Uninspiring new faces

New faces were auditioned—three of India’s last six debutants have been outright pacers—but none had eased the labour on the twin pillars. All three—Akash Deep, Harshit Rana and Anshul Kamboj— capture the diverse insufficiencies of India’s fast bowling. Akash Deep is highly skilled, has dexterous wrists and pace when fully fit, but his intensity faltered after the match-winning concert at Edgbaston. At Lord’s, whether he was carrying an injury or not is uncertain, he was a shadow the breeze that blew over Birmingham. After a niggle he returned for the decider at Oval, but his incision and precision faltered. Fast bowling empires are not built on fragile frames.

India’s Anshul Kamboj bowls a delivery during the second day of the fourth cricket test match between England and India at Emirates Old Trafford, Manchester, England, Thursday, July 24, 2025. (AP Photo/Jon Super)

The team management summoned Kamboj, after impressing the selectors on the domestic circuit and A tours, and handed out the debut cap. But he looked both out-of-pace and out-of-depth. He barely nudged 130 kph, hardly swung the ball and exuded little life or spark. His inadequacies were a damning verdict on India’s fast-bowling stable. “Not many in domestic cricket could touch even 135 kph, the minimum you need in Test cricket,” a worried support staff member said. Those could be counted on one palm of your hand. Avesh Khan, Kuldeep Sen, Arshdeep, Harshit Rana, Khaleel Ahmed… the list stops. None seem primed and ready to meet the demand of Test cricket.

In contrast, at the stroke of this decade, India had a fleet of deluxe seamers-on-the-call. The untiring Umesh Yadav was reduced to guest roles when one of Ishant Sharma, Shami and Bumrah was injured or needed a succour. Bhuveshwar Kumar was considered redundant, Navdeep Saini, Shardul Thakur and Siraj were on the waiting list. A deep reservoir of pace bowlers is always the aspiration of any cricket squad. And, transition was without friction.

Suddenly, there is an acute shortage, comparable to the late 90s, of seamers without pace and verve. India were one Javagal Srinath injury away from cajoling Sourav Ganguly to share the new ball with whoever was available on day. The chartbusters in domestic cricket are largely spinners of the left-arm orthodox variant. The seamers in the top 10 are most military medium pacers. Like Auqib Nabi of Jammu and Kashmir. Consequently, instincts, fleeting impressions, and gut-feeling instigate selectors to fast-track raw ones in the hope that they would seamlessly blend to international cricket.

Expediting Harshit Rana before he was ripe embodies the selectors’ helplessness. The Delhi seamer had featured in less than 10 games when hurried into debuting in Perth, in a series opener no less. He produced fire and bark on debut, but soon fizzled out, betraying the rough edges that need smoothening in domestic cricket. Contrastingly, Siraj had six seasons of domestic toil on his ledger when he debuted in Melbourne, 2020. Akash Deep was a Bengal regular when he earned the India nod. Thrown into the deep end prematurely, he combusted.

The rare seamers endowed with pace, like Umran Malik and Mayank Yadav, parachuted to fame through IPL, are unaccustomed to red-ball rigours. Malik, with just 12 first-class games to his name, last turned up in a Ranji Trophy game in February 2024. Mayank’s lone appearance came in 2022. That India’s is an ageing group aggravates the deficiency. Shami is 34, Bumrah turns 32 and would be a casualty of workload juggle; Siraj is 31. Prasidh and Akash Deep, at 28 and 29, are not too young either. In short, they have only one dependable quick, Siraj. And it wouldn’t be long before his body too begins to rebel, if he does not get the timely breaks.

Worryingly, the spin department too is not tumbling over with riches. The left-arm spin is thriving, as they had been through decades, but there is hardly an off-spinner to challenge Washington Sundar or a wrist-spinner to keep Kuldeep Yadav on the toes. A long home season would mask the cracks—India next play Tests outside Asia in November 2026, against New Zealand—but there are enough concerns, both immediate and long term, to keep Gambhir and Co occupied and worried in the coming months.

Indian pacers’ workload since December 26, 2023 (balls bowled in Tests)

Mohammed Siraj	3144
Jasprit Bumrah	3080
Akash Deep	1536
Prasidh Krishna	960
Nitish Kumar Reddy	432

 

This since 2023 is bs really.

 

Indian pacers barely bowl at home. So this is highly dependent on home/away cycle and tours to sena.

 

 

That is,, these stats have a highly cyclical/seasonal nature over a 4 year period.

 

[deepdynamo]

We have been trying too much in red ball cricket.

 

There should be maximum 4-5 bowlers in one era that should be groomed and play test matches. Giving random games to test pacers and then discarding them for someone else is not ideal.

 

In the previous era for about 8 years, we had Ishant, Shami, Umesh, Bhuvi and Bumrah.

 

Now in the current era, apart from Bumrah & Siraj, we have been giving test caps to literally everyone without zerioing on a stable pack.

 

Mukesh, Unadkat(recalled), Harshit, Akashdeep, Prasidh, Kamboj, Arshdeep( in queue). 

 

Hope we finalized our best five pacers soon and stick with them for next 4-5 years.