India-Outsiders Perspective

[julianlev]

Well that was less than amazing wasn't it? After the hammering handed down by Australia, alot of questions have arisen about team India's performance in test matches, particularly its ability to take twenty opposition wickets on the pace friendly tracks favoured England, South Africa and Australia. Questions may be asked about the aging batting lineup, but I don't believe that there is cause for concern, as Kallis proved against Sri Lanka, age is no limiter on a batsmans ability. No, the problem is India is its bowling, it always has been really, however it is only when venturing outside of the sub-continent that these inadequacies are exposed. The logic is simple; whereas 20/20 cricket is about runs, and ODIs are about the balane between runs and wickets, test cricket is almost entirely about wickets. Test cricket is relatvely easy to score runs in because of the time given to batsmen to get in the the gradual tiring of the bowlers. This is why I do not believe India to be well suited to test cricket, their strength has always been with the bat, but that strength means less in test cricket because even relatively weak batting lineups can score runs due to the reasons already mentioned. In test cricket one must be able to consistently remove the opposition batting twice. So then we turn to bowling and it is here where India's glaring weakness is on show. I recently watched an Indian news report which featured an Australian former player who claimed that India lacked bowlers who could consistantly hit the 145 mark. This is a huge weakness, as pitches outside of the sub-continent are best suited for those fast bowlers who can best exploit the turn and bounce of the track. Whether due to their physical build or simply a lack of interest, India rarely produces those lightning quicks which they need to perform away fro home. Compare the Indian pace attack to those of England, Australia and South Africa, I rest my case. Unfortunately, this weakness is not always visible to the public because alot of the time, India has posssessed the batting strength to post huge totals which give their bowlers a large cusion of runs on which to work. This is why India are so good on the sub-continent where runs are relatively easy to come by. It is only on the more difficult batting pitches where India really struggle as their bowlers are simply not good enough to defend even moderate totals. Spin does not feature as highly outside of the sub-contient, thus negating one of India's only bowling strengths, and outside of the wily Khan, the Indian quicks simply do not posssess the raw pace to be consistent. So what is to be done? Well if I were in charge of the BCCI I would cover the length and breadth of India to find those 145 plus bowlers which I have been talking about. They will not be bountiful, but they will exist, after all, India has a huge population and is cricket mad, so I will not believe that there simply aren't the bowlers available. Those bowlers should be groomed to be the next line of Indian bowlers and quickly. Zaheer Khan is decent, but he is not young and I shudder to imagine the state of the Indian attack once he is gone. I do fear that Indian cricket is suffering due to the increasingly inwardly looking BCCI, with the emergene of the IPL and all. While I like the IPL and it's great fun to watch, it does not prepare Indian players for the conditions ouside of India. It can even go so far as to create false ideas of supremacy because international pace bowlers will always be less efective in India. Make no mistake, there is a huge difference to facing Steyn or Lee in India than in SA or Australia. And I will split no hairs, a 53 day IPL is so mad, one might go so far as to call it Sparta. Finally, I will touch on Dhoni's captaincy, which is admittedly a cause for concern. I have had great respect for Dhoni's laid back approach to captaining in the past, but it is clearly becoming a burden during the matches. Again, it is all a matter of conditions, in the sub-continent it is ok to sit back and wait for wickets to present themselves, but in Australia a far more attacking mindset is required, which is something which I am not sure Dhoni possesses. :hatsoff:

[Clarke]

I don't know where to start ..

No, the problem is India is its bowling, it always has been really, however it is only when venturing outside of the sub-continent that these inadequacies are exposed.

Not as big a 'problem' until the England tour. We were fine with Zak playing in SA for instance.

So then we turn to bowling and it is here where India's glaring weakness is on show. I recently watched an Indian news report which featured an Australian former player who claimed that India lacked bowlers who could consistantly hit the 145 mark. This is a huge weakness, as pitches outside of the sub-continent are best suited for those fast bowlers who can best exploit the turn and bounce of the track.

We never had this consistently 145 kmph bowler. Our best bowlers in the last year or two (Zaheer & Praveen) aren't anywhere close and have consistently troubled batsmen. Its great to have 145ers but that's not a necessary/sufficient condition of overseas victories.

[julianlev]

We never had this consistently 145 kmph bowler. Our best bowlers in the last year or two (Zaheer & Praveen) aren't anywhere close and have consistently troubled batsmen. Its great to have 145ers but that's not a necessary/sufficient condition of overseas victories.

You weren't troubling England in England, and you really weren't troubling the Aussies. As I said, Zak is the exception, mostly becasue he's experienced. But he won't be around forever and Praveen is hardly amazing. I say again, look at the difference between your attack and that of other countries, especially the non sub-continent ones. And I refuse to believe that in all of India you can't find a consistent 145 plus bowler.

[julianlev]

Now that I think of it, why don't we ask the audience. This is a request going out to all you Indian locals out there, if you know any young bowlers currently playing in India who can qualify as genuine fast paced let me know, and I'll pass on the info to my contacts at the BCCI as soon as they return my calls.

[daryl1985]

You weren't troubling England in England' date=' and you really weren't troubling the Aussies. As I said, Zak is the exception, mostly becasue he's experienced. But he won't be around forever and Praveen is hardly amazing. I say again, look at the difference between your attack and that of other countries, especially the non sub-continent ones. [b'] And I refuse to believe that in all of India you can't find a consistent 145 plus bowler.

Do you mean consistent as in can hit 145 km/h on a regular basis or consistent in terms of being a good wicket taker and solid performer. If you mean the former then Yadav and Sharma seem to be 140+ at the moment and Yadav has the tools to be a very good bowler.

[maniac]

You weren't troubling England in England' date=' and you really weren't troubling the Aussies. As I said, Zak is the exception, mostly becasue he's experienced. But he won't be around forever and Praveen is hardly amazing. I say again, look at the difference between your attack and that of other countries, especially the non sub-continent ones. And I refuse to believe that in all of India you can't find a consistent 145 plus bowler.[/quote'] Are you even watching the current test series...Seriously,Do you think bowling is our biggest problem?....I know our bowling is mediocre but it is our batting which let us down in both tests. 1st test for eg:we blew a position to take a healthy lead in the 1st innings and just surrendered in the 2nd innings in what was tough but still chasable target 2nd test;It was a road and if our batsmen showed a little bit more patience,it would have ended in a boring draw....Even the aussie bowlers struggled in the 2nd innings. Also I think you are a SA fan right???in the last tour to SA it was only one bad innings with the bat in the 1st test that cost us the series...our bowling did it's job even there In england...it was both bat and ball but we could have atleast drawn 1 test had our batting fired

[julianlev]

Are you even watching the current test series...Seriously,Do you think bowling is our biggest problem?....I know our bowling is mediocre but it is our batting which let us down in both tests. 1st test for eg:we blew a position to take a healthy lead in the 1st innings and just surrendered in the 2nd innings in what was tough but still chasable target 2nd test;It was a road and if our batsmen showed a little bit more patience,it would have ended in a boring draw....Even the aussie bowlers struggled in the 2nd innings. Also I think you are a SA fan right???in the last tour to SA it was only one bad innings with the bat in the 1st test that cost us the series...our bowling did it's job even there In england...it was both bat and ball but we could have atleast drawn 1 test had our batting fired

if your chasing over 500 like you were against Australia it wont matter how good your batting is because you'll be aiming for a draw at best. Also, the Aussie bowlers may have toiled, but they never looked as non-threatening as yours did. And though they bowled last on that "road" they bowled you out, twice in fact. Thats the difference. Also, I'm sorry but even on roads that Aussie score was ridiculous against what was recently the number one test team in the world. I have been watching the games, at 2 in the goddamn morning I might add, and the batting lineup should acclimatize to the Australian conditions eventually. Bowlers on the other hand can't suddenly increase their pace to suit the conditions, you need bowlers who can naturally bowl fast. Your batsmen may go through bad spells, but those will pass, they already looked more confident in the second innings of that test, though Tendulkar seriously needs to get that 100 under his belt so that he can play freely again.

[daryl1985]

if your chasing over 500 like you were against Australia it wont matter how good your batting is because you'll be aiming for a draw at best. Also, the Aussie bowlers may have toiled, but they never looked as non-threatening as yours did. And though they bowled last on that "road" they bowled you out, twice in fact. Thats the difference. Also, I'm sorry but even on roads that Aussie score was ridiculous against what was recently the number one test team in the world. I have been watching the games, at 2 in the goddamn morning I might add, and the batting lineup should acclimatize to the Australian conditions eventually. Bowlers on the other hand can't suddenly increase their pace to suit the conditions, you need bowlers who can naturally bowl fast. Your batsmen may go through bad spells, but those will pass, they already looked more confident in the second innings of that test, though Tendulkar seriously needs to get that 100 under his belt so that he can play freely again.

Our best bowler is our slowest one as you have already pointed out. Our other two bowlers bowl at 140-145 kmh. Both are faster than Hilfenhaus, who in my opinion was the best bowler on display in the Sydney test. Pace was not the problem with the bowling. The problems were that Ishant does not pitch the ball up and Yadav was just all over the place.

[maniac]

if your chasing over 500 like you were against Australia it wont matter how good your batting is because you'll be aiming for a draw at best. Also, the Aussie bowlers may have toiled, but they never looked as non-threatening as yours did. And though they bowled last on that "road" they bowled you out, twice in fact. Thats the difference. Also, I'm sorry but even on roads that Aussie score was ridiculous against what was recently the number one test team in the world. I have been watching the games, at 2 in the goddamn morning I might add, and the batting lineup should acclimatize to the Australian conditions eventually. Bowlers on the other hand can't suddenly increase their pace to suit the conditions, you need bowlers who can naturally bowl fast. Your batsmen may go through bad spells, but those will pass, they already looked more confident in the second innings of that test, though Tendulkar seriously needs to get that 100 under his belt so that he can play freely again.

Way to miss the point....1st test we were chasing 290 odd which nowadays is chasable despite being tough it is still very much acheivable.what let us down was our batting We got aus under a pretty decent score in both innings....who gave away the chance to lead when we were in a strong position...our batting...In case you havent watched here is the scorecard http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/current/match/518950.html Again I don't want to repeat this but our bowling was always a concern even when we were No:1 but we got there because of our legendary batting line up and ever since it is failing we are getting our *** whooped. So please don't take the beaten down path of we need Phhhhaaaast boilers etc....We get it.But instead of focussing on something that has always been our achillies heel our worry should be when our strength is letting us down. our strength was always batting and as of now we are still searching for someone to take the mantle of our batting greats.as far as bowling goes that should be unfortunately our 2nd concern...If we start scoring 500 in every test and still losing then yes we would naturally look into our bowling.

[maniac]

I was one of those who defended Indian bowling saying that our work-horse like bowlers get the job done even when some non-Indian fans especially padosis made fun of it.... Our rise to No1 coincided with 4-5 ectremely talented batsmen SRT,Dravid,VVS,Sehwag and Dada playing at their peak almost at once which masked our bowling weakness....Right now when these guys are woefully out of form our bowling is finally being exposed for what it has always been. So I would say our concern more than the next Kumble or the next breakthrough fast bowler should be how we will be able to fill the shoes of these batting greats.We still havent found a replacement to Ganguly.

[zep1706]

It's not one or the other, both batting and bowling are not working at the moment. Add poor defensive captaincy to that and we have the recipe for a white-wash. Also test cricket is all about playing well in big moments. But over the last one year starting from letting SA off the hook in Cape Town India have failed to perform in big moments and let the advantage slip away too easily in many occasions, you don't win test cricket playing like that.

[julianlev]

I was one of those who defended Indian bowling saying that our work-horse like bowlers get the job done even when some non-Indian fans especially padosis made fun of it.... Our rise to No1 coincided with 4-5 ectremely talented batsmen SRT,Dravid,VVS,Sehwag and Dada playing at their peak almost at once which masked our bowling weakness....Right now when these guys are woefully out of form our bowling is finally being exposed for what it has always been. So I would say our concern more than the next Kumble or the next breakthrough fast bowler should be how we will be able to fill the shoes of these batting greats.We still havent found a replacement to Ganguly.

Padosis? Your going to have to clue me in there.

[ganeshran]

Padosis = neighbours aka Pakistanis

[Clarke]

You weren't troubling England in England' date=' and you really weren't troubling the Aussies. As I said, Zak is the exception, mostly becasue he's experienced. But he won't be around forever and Praveen is hardly amazing. I say again, look at the difference between your attack and that of other countries, especially the non sub-continent ones. And I refuse to believe that in all of India you can't find a consistent 145 plus bowler.[/quote'] Why is your perspective limited to the last 2 series ? What i said is true, we haven't had bowlers who bowl 90 mph consistently at all. Our wins abroad before the recent debacle weren't powered by quicks either, so its not like its a necessary criterion. Consistently quick bowlers are sometimes good to have, but consistently good bowlers (90 mph or not) are always recommended, and there's no denying that.

[rkt.india]

@Juliablev Having 90 mph bowler is good but only 90 mph wont give you wicket. It is all about how bowlers use that 90 mph to their advantage mixed with their skills. Yes, a mixture of pace and accuracy is the most difficult bowling to face with some skills. We have Ishant and Yadav who both bowl 90 mph. Yadav and Ishant both bowled well in 1st test, Yadav got most wickets and Ishant did not get many wickets who has his own demons to fight out for not getting wickets. In 2mnd test, though all 3 of our pacers bowler poorly, Yadav was poorest. It is about consistency with pace. I can give you an example of your own Morne Morkel. Last year we toured SA and Morkel was consistently at his hostile best and looked on par with Styen in all 3 matches, but this year while Steyn is still what he was, but Morkel has lost that consistency and has looked their worst bowler this season even Merchant De Lange bowled better and Morkel too bowls 90 mph. We all want 90 mph bowler in India but we also want them to practice hard in the nets on their accuracy and consistency, on the other hand our team management is not much interested in net practicing, they think after sightseeing, picnics, and time off cricket, everything will be alright, but it is the practice which will make them perform better, not picnics. Most of these guys are coming from breaks so what kind of time off cricket they need now. I do not think they can complain of too much cricket now. What do you do in the nets is mostly reflected in your performance in the match.

[saneindian]

For any bowling lineup to look effective, they need the batsmen to put up 300+ totals consistently. We failed to do that in England, have struggled to do it here making the bowlers look worse than they actually are. A captain lost in his own thoughts and unable to inspire the team isn't helping the bowlers either. At MCG bowlers got 20 Aussie wickets, all that the batting unit had to do was to match the Aussie first innings total which we failed to do and surrendered the match. At Perth, should have played out the first sessions safely, instead batsmen wanted to dominate and gifted their wickets. Even a 325-330 in the first innings would have mad the bowlers far more potent on the flat track at Sydney.

[rkt.india]

For any bowling lineup to look effective, they need the batsmen to put up 300+ totals consistently. We failed to do that in England, have struggled to do it here making the bowlers look worse than they actually are. A captain lost in his own thoughts and unable to inspire the team isn't helping the bowlers either. At MCG bowlers got 20 Aussie wickets, all that the batting unit had to do was to match the Aussie first innings total which we failed to do and surrendered the match. At Perth, should have played out the first sessions safely, instead batsmen wanted to dominate and gifted their wickets. Even a 325-330 in the first innings would have mad the bowlers far more potent on the flat track at Sydney.

Spot on. I felt there was no captain and every one was doing his own things.

[express bowling]

@ julienlev Nice analysis from the point of view of an outsider. The point you have made about our weak bowling, especially in tests, is a valid one. India has never been a great overseas test side because we have lacked a good pace attack. Lack of 145 k pacers, barring Srinath, has been a problem but not the only one. A few points on this issue -- Currently we have 3 internation pacers ( Umesh, Ishant and Aaron ) who are bowling consistently @ 145 k and sometimes touching 150 k. So this problem is being addressed. Also, there are 2 to 3 other such bowlers playing domestic cricket. -- Accuracy of bowlers, no matter what their pace, has been and is a big concern most probably because they don't practice enough. Plus -- most pacers don't bowl to a plan and just go through the motions. One of the reasons for this is that in India almost nobody is interested in bowling --- from the grassroot level to the top. Even bowlers want to bat much more than they want to bowl. If there is inherent lack of interest it is very difficult to excel. -- In our country everybody just understands the concept of swing and are strangely oblivious about seam movement and getting steep bounce by hitting the deck hard. Even really quick bowlers bowl very few bouncers to push the batsmen on the back foot, so that their subsequent pitched up deliveries are more effective. Most good pace attacks around the world always do this ... they hit the deck hard often even if they are 130 k bowlers. In india you would see bowlers just trying to pitch the ball up and sometimes bowling longhops. Very few pacers are deck hitters. So, unless there is distinct swing available, the pacers become ineffective and one dimensional. Indian batsmen, who had played wonderfully overseas in the past, are also faltering now. One of the main reasons must be a change in mindset and a disinterest about test cricket after the IPL was launched. I don't see this problem going away in a hurry. This disinterest about tests is being accentuated by a very very hectic calender which is causing both mental burnouts as well as physical injuries. Dhoni's captaincy has also come down a notch because of the abovementioned factors. He does not seem to be interested about tests that much and is more in a limited overs cricket mindset. Also, he is physically injured and mentally tired because of incessant cricket.

[Sarkar]

Padosis = neighbours aka Pakistanis

The padosis cant even chase against our trundlers in pressure games

[Karan114]

For any bowling lineup to look effective, they need the batsmen to put up 300+ totals consistently. We failed to do that in England, have struggled to do it here making the bowlers look worse than they actually are. A captain lost in his own thoughts and unable to inspire the team isn't helping the bowlers either.

This.