Need complete overhaul of our bowling

[fineleg]

And, also Group B should spend sometime playing English county cricket to regain form and fitness. Stop playing ODIs and T20s in subcontinent patta pitches.

[Fontaine]

So who exactly do we bowl instead? Yes our bowlers are out of form and the fielders are not helping, but has anyone asked why ALL of our bowlers look so poor? Usually in a side one or two bowlers get out of form but EVERYONE from Ishant, Irfan when he was dropped, Yusuf Pathan, Bhajji, ZK, Nehra, Sreesanth, yes EVERYONE is bowling mediocre to poorly. At some stage you have to face the facts. Any bowling side that has consistently bowled in flat wickets for the past year is going to suffer from lack of form and confidence. A few ODIs did have good pitches but the rest is just full of flat wickets. You can go through the rest of the young Indian bowlers in domestic cricket and they might do well in patches but ultimately the problem is far too much meaningless cricket is played on dull, flat pitches where the bowlers are nothing more than cannon fodder. We had England tour in India recently and their bowlers (apart from a few spells from Freddie) sucked as well in the ODI series and routinely gave up scores of around and above 300. You want our bowlers to be in form? Then have them bowl in competitive pitches. How is any young bowler going to get in form when even tail enders can bat through the line with no fear?

[putrevus]

It's not like other team's bowlers are bowling under-250 scores in these pitches.

when we want to reach the summit and stay there comparing with other team's crap will take us no where. What is the most shocking thing is Zaheer khan with new ball in odis has zero penetration and is very very expensive, there is no threat of taking a wicket, with old ball nobody is good at bowling yorkers,The result is teams are getting a great starts and great finishes. Spinners like Bhajji and Jadeja are very inconsistent.Jadeja needs to improve his batting he cannot bat at no 7 it is making our tail too long.

[kabira]

I hate Groupism

[cowboysfan]

The wickets in the sub continent will remain flat,that reduces the margin of error for our bowlers and unfortunately none of them know how to contain a batsman.they need to out think them .They buckle easily when attacked and death bowling is horrendous.the solution is to larn to contain batsmen on flat wickets and induce false shots.

[Fontaine]

Let's look at England for example. They toured here a year ago and lost all five ODIs. Here are the runs their bowlers gave up: 1st ODI: India v England at Rajkot - Nov 14, 2008 India 387/5 (50 ov) 2nd ODI: India v England at Indore - Nov 17, 2008 India won by 54 runs India 292/9 (50 ov) 3rd ODI: India v England at Kanpur - Nov 20, 2008 England 240 (48.4/49 ov); India 198/5 (40/40 ov) 4th ODI: India v England at Bangalore - Nov 23, 2008 India won by 19 runs (D/L method) India 166/4 (22/22 ov); England 178/8 (22/22 ov) 5th ODI: India v England at Cuttack - Nov 26, 2008 India won by 6 wickets (with 38 balls remaining) England 270/4 (50 ov); India 273/4 (43.4 ov) India destroyed their bowlers including Broad, Swann, Flintoff, Anderson. Broad who is so hyped up and treated like bowling royalty bowled 7 wickets, average 38. Swann 4 wickets @ 31 Harmison 4 wicket @ 43 Fast Freddie? 4 wickets @ 53 And Jimmy Anderson, regarded as Englands best swing bowler 0 wickets, in 25 overs at an economy of 6.32, 0 maidens. You go ask those English bowlers, how would they like to bowl in the subcontinent for an entire year and then work out their figures. ALL of them would lose form and confidence and ineviteably dropped and so on. You ask a swing bowler like Jimmy Anderson how he would like to bowl in the subcontinent for 3/4 of all his matches where there's swing and very little seam for maybe 5 overs. You couldn't pay him enough to do that. Unfortunately most of our bowlers are swing bowlers like ZK, PK, IP, RP Singh etc. I understand that people here want our bowlers to do better, and I know that wickets are getting better for batting around the world, but, other bowlers have more occasions to bowl in helpful conditions whereas our bowlers have bowled exclusively on flat patta wickets that offer no help. It's not like other bowlers in teams we face do much better. To make matters worse, now they have the extra disadvantage of bowling with a wet ball if they lose the toss. Anyone who's ever bowled competitively will understand that just giving your best in these types of situations doesn't matter when your faced with those kind of obstacles.

[goose]

Completely agreed with Fontaine.

[Fontaine]

Would you expect the likes of Kohli, Raina, Yuvraj etc to get half centuries etc on pitches that turn square, or pitches with great variable bounce and swing? Please, the one ODI match where there were these conditions the SAME batsmen from Sri Lanka were 85 for 5 against THE SAME bowlers. Dilshan was beaten up and worked over and the Sri Lankan batsmen were afraid to take the field. It was an extreme situation but the opposite of what these flat patta wickets offer, but the point is still the SAME. You wouldn't expect batsmen to score centuries and 300 team runs on the pitch where that match was abandoned. Why the hell would you expect out of form bowlers to restrict batsmen and bowl sides out on flat patta wickets? This is what you get when you have meaningless, stupid matches again and again on these flat tracks.

[vvvslaxman]

Nehra and Zaheer bowl 3 full tosses every over in death overs because the tracks are "flat"? That is new.

[vvvslaxman]

It's not like other bowlers in teams we face do much better. .

That is because our batsmen are superior. Look at Mhamadullas, Tamim iqbals and the way thrashed our bowlers.

[Fontaine]

Nehra and Zaheer bowl 3 full tosses every over in death overs because the tracks are "flat"? That is new.

Yeah that's absolutely right. Zaheer and Nehra are bowling full tosses in the death overs because the wickets are flat. It has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that the ball is impossible to grip because it's wet. Yup nothing to do with that. Those fielders and bowlers that go around with towels to try and dry the ball are carrying those towels because it's the latest fashion statement! :haha:

[Fontaine]

That is because our batsmen are superior. Look at Mhamadullas' date=' Tamim iqbals and the way thrashed our bowlers.[/quote'] Yeah, our batsmen are so superior that they got booted our of the t20 world cup, Champions trophy etc etc.

[vvvslaxman]

Yeah' date=' our batsmen are so superior that they got booted our of the t20 world cup, Champions trophy etc etc.[/quote'] In T20 . Don't forget India leaked 41 runs in 2.5 overs in the death against Windies.

[vvvslaxman]

This Sohiab Malik is an absolute douche against every other team. But we let him score 120 odd runs in the CT leaking huge amount of runs in the death. We have to stop living in denial and stop finding excuses for our pathetic bowling.

[vvvslaxman]

Today's match 46.1 Khan to Naeem Islam, 1 run, low fulltoss, gets a single to mid-off 46.2 Khan to Mahmudullah, 2 runs, half-volley on the pads, helped away, but fine leg is back and fairly square - so it's neither one nor four 46.3 Khan to Mahmudullah, FOUR, digs it in short, and the pull shot evades a leaping Yuvraj at square leg, the crowd is having a ball 46.4 Khan to Mahmudullah, 1 run, flicks a length ball to mid-on and comes through for a quick single 46.5 Khan to Naeem Islam, 2 runs, fulltoss on the pads, and he has missed out on it, hitting straight to deep midwicket 46.6 Khan to Naeem Islam, 2 runs, another fulltoss on the pads, and he beats mid-on and gets two before deep midwicket can come around

[fineleg]

I hate Groupism

You are mistaking the "Group A" and "Group B"...I just wrote that to gather the list of players currently in 11 or in the recent past 11 versus those bowlers who have fallen out of favor or not yet selected. Not to create groupism. Uber point being, perhaps time has arrived to give comebacks to Irfan Pathan and Aggy and maybe also try out Abhishek Nayyar. Keep Sreesanth and Tyagi in the fray for now as well. By doing that we are accepting the fact that we dont have any good medium pacers in India. But that seems to be something we need to accept and do the best we can by at least selecting the folks who can bat a bit and field better. No point in selecting ZK, Nehra, Praveen Kumar, or RP Singh in ODIs despite the repeated wayward bowling.

[The Outsider]

If you guys take a deep breath and think through Fontaine's arguments instead of wildly jumping up and down, they make a lot of sense. The point here is not how can they bowl full tosses - what has the pitch got to do with that. The point being made is that non stop bowling on the greatest pattas in the history of humanity has shredded the confidence of all our bowlers. They don't know how to bowl those yorkers anymore because they are no longer in any bowling rhythm. Take Ishant Sharma's example - the continuous over dose of IPL and T20 on pattas has destroyed his bowling. He does not know what is right anymore and how to run in and bowl that right delivery anymore. The same deliveries which were jagging back in and bouncing at Perth and Brisbane are sitting up to be smashed till heavens come. What is he supposed to do? Well, he alters his length, his action, his grip, and pretty much has lost his entire bowling mechanism. Just to expand on the example of yorkers - these bowlers have certain things which they do to bowl a yorker - release from a certain point, certain shoulder movement change etc. But because their confidence and action is shot now, they cannot replicate it unerringly. Whenever a touring team comes to India, their bowlers also get smashed. The difference is that they can go back and work back their form in better conditions. Our bowlers just get slaughtered day in and day out and with the IPL in another couple of months expect them to go down the gutter even more. My suggestion is that if the pitches cannot be improved just keep Zaheer, Ishant, and Sreesanth exclusively for test matches - it won't happen but anyhow. The number of runs the Dindas and Gonys are going to give on these merciless wickets is not going to be much different, but at least our test bowlers will not think that they have lost the ability to bowl.

[fineleg]

Our bowlers just get slaughtered day in and day out and with the IPL in another couple of months expect them to go down the gutter even more.

This IPL is the worst thing that has happened to Indian and world cricket. Darn it Lalit$$Modi

My suggestion is that if the pitches cannot be improved just keep Zaheer, Ishant, and Sreesanth exclusively for test matches - it won't happen but anyhow. The number of runs the Dindas and Gonys are going to give on these merciless wickets is not going to be much different, but at least our test bowlers will not think that they have lost the ability to bowl.

Yes, add to that RP Singh also. These premium pacers need to play Tests and English County cricket, and maybe a few ODIs in NZ, Aus, SA. They should be kept away from all ODIs in subcontinent, and pls. keep them away from IPL! :angry_smile: the circus of modi

[vvvslaxman]

Pitches are going to be flat everywhere. Not just India. If India can't improve their bowling and fielding they better kiss good bye to their world cup dreams. Because even noobs like that Srilankan kid just bash these bowlers to oblivion. Other teams can compensate with brilliant fielding. Our bowlers are coincidentally the worst fielders also in the team. Just in case there is a collapse they are rarely useful. If you can't bowl well (because pitches are "flat"), can't field well (hope there is no excuse there), can't score a few runs to get us to the end. If you are absolutely uselss why bother playing them. Atleast play some bowlers who can field better and bat better.

[vvvslaxman]

Economy rate of Indian bowlers for the last 2 years in the following 4 countries 1) Australia 2) New zealand 3) South Africa 4) West Indies http://stats.cricinfo.com/ci/engine/stats/index.html?class=2;filter=advanced;host=2;host=3;host=4;host=5;orderby=economy_rate;orderbyad=reverse;qualmin1=60;qualval1=balls;spanmin1=07+Jan+2008;spanval1=span;team=6;template=results;type=bowling RP singh 6.33 MM Patel 5.86 Zaheer 5.57 Irfan 5.49 Ishant 5.48 Nehra 5.23 Praveen Kumar 4.81