Bowling remains a headache for Indian cricket

[Roshanrocks]

Bowlers like McGrath and Gillespie never bowled fuller length consistently, but they always got wickets because they used to seam the ball after pitching which Ishant has not been able to do off late because of poor seam position. It is not like Ishant bowled only short or short of length, he bowled fuller too, but he did not get any purchase. Fast bowling depends on seam position a lot, to seam and swing the ball. Most batsmen will play straight balls whether they are pitched up or short of length. It is movement which deceives the batsmen. Length depends on the kind of bowler you are. A swing bowler will mostly bowl fuller, but he is not swing bowler. He is seam bowler and seam bowlers need to vary their length to deceive batsmen with seam movement from both length fuller length and short of a good length.

You are saying that Ishant's wrist position while delivering the ball is flawed, he gets no purchase from the wicket. No seam movement whatsoever, His bowling action doesnt favor swing bowling so he has to depend on seam movement to purchase wickets. But if you notice his bowling, there are a few deliveries which do seam and a few do manage to swing. Maybe by mistake some deliveries land on the seam or land on the cracks on the pitch or whatever, Its not like each and every delivery of his doesnt seam. But what good will this do if all he bowls is short deliveries. How will he get a wicket if the ball while occasionally seaming just keeps going above the wicket? His bowling doesnt show any kind of plan, He just appears to run down the wicket and bowl ONLY short. I am telling you what I see in every game that he plays (We will check again during IPL), there is no clever variation of length whatsoever. I dont remember him trying cutters and rarely see him employ slower balls (T20's ?). From what i remember from my memory while watching Ishant in West Indies was that he was pitching the ball fuller and getting the pitch to do something and got quite a few wickets. Now, if a batsman knows Ishant cannot seam, and will only bowl short, the possibility of bowled/lbw dismissals gets thrown out of the window. And if Ishant is only going to depend in getting wickets through"catches" only, then God help him. Plus his line also is erratic. You rarely see an over without the customary "short and wide" delivery.

[rkt.india]

You are saying that Ishant's wrist position while delivering the ball is flawed, he gets no purchase from the wicket. No seam movement whatsoever, His bowling action doesnt favor swing bowling so he has to depend on seam movement to purchase wickets. But if you notice his bowling, there are a few deliveries which do seam and a few do manage to swing. Maybe by mistake some deliveries land on the seam or land on the cracks on the pitch or whatever, Its not like each and every delivery of his doesnt seam. But what good will this do if all he bowls is short deliveries. How will he get a wicket if the ball while occasionally seaming just keeps going above the wicket? His bowling doesnt show any kind of plan, He just appears to run down the wicket and bowl ONLY short. I am telling you what I see in every game that he plays (We will check again during IPL), there is no clever variation of length whatsoever. I dont remember him trying cutters and rarely see him employ slower balls (T20's ?). From what i remember from my memory while watching Ishant in West Indies was that he was pitching the ball fuller and getting the pitch to do something and got quite a few wickets. Now, if a batsman knows Ishant cannot seam, and will only bowl short, the possibility of bowled/lbw dismissals gets thrown out of the window. And if Ishant is only going to depend in getting wickets through"catches" only, then God help him. Plus his line also is erratic. You rarely see an over without the customary "short and wide" delivery.

No. His line is not erratic. He has been more consistent than other young fast bowlers. Remember MCG test, he was going 2 RPO. IF he can improve his seam, which is not that difficult IMO, he will against start doing well. Bowling in a test match is about consistency whether you bowl at 130 or 145. One can take wickets by bowling one odd good delivery at FC level, but in test cricket, one will need to persist and be patience. Ishant is having the same problem. He bowls 2 good balls and then try to do something different on 3rd ball. Same thing with his seam position. Occasional good seam wont yield desired result. Patience is the key for him along with good seam. He bowls wide on occasions but those wide bowls used to seam back in before when he used to have good seam position. All he needs to do is work on his writs and seam in the nets. I am not sure if he is going to play IPL. He recently had ankle surgery which will keep him out for a few months now. Most people say PK is out best seamer, most consistent, but for me he is the biggest burden in ODIs. Ishant has better record than him, better average, better strike rate, etc., and even Ishant was dropped because he was poor in ODIs while Ishant has an SR comparable to many good ODI bowlers.

[express bowling]

^ His line has not been erratic. It has been consistent ---- but consistently wrong line. He does not make the batsmen play enough in tests and wastes his energy ball after ball. He may not give that many runs in tests because batsmen take less risks and do not chase wide deliveries, but he will not get many wickets either. In ODIs and T20s he gves too much width and gets hit for atleast one 4 per over if not more. That is why he does not get a chance to play limited over games.

[Roshanrocks]

No. His line is not erratic. He has been more consistent than other young fast bowlers. Remember MCG test, he was going 2 RPO. IF he can improve his seam, which is not that difficult IMO, he will against start doing well. Bowling in a test match is about consistency whether you bowl at 130 or 145. One can take wickets by bowling one odd good delivery at FC level, but in test cricket, one will need to persist and be patience. Ishant is having the same problem. He bowls 2 good balls and then try to do something different on 3rd ball. Same thing with his seam position. Occasional good seam wont yield desired result. Patience is the key for him along with good seam. He bowls wide on occasions but those wide bowls used to seam back in before when he used to have good seam position. All he needs to do is work on his writs and seam in the nets. I am not sure if he is going to play IPL. He recently had ankle surgery which will keep him out for a few months now. Most people say PK is out best seamer, most consistent, but for me he is the biggest burden in ODIs. Ishant has better record than him, better average, better strike rate, etc., and even Ishant was dropped because he was poor in ODIs while Ishant has an SR comparable to many good ODI bowlers.

Ok I didnt see much of him in Australia, I totally missed that entire test series.but I did see him in England, where he was bowling consistently short and varying his line, thats about it. Batsman just used to leave his bowling or backfoot puch him for fours. Anyways, lets hope he comes out from his ankle injury as a better bowler. If he finally gets that seam position right, and finally does bowl a few fuller length deliveries which seam/ swing he will be lethal. He has already proved to us that he has an awesome stamina. Lets hope.

[rkt.india]

^ His line has not been erratic. It has been consistent ---- but consistently wrong line. He does not make the batsmen play enough in tests and wastes his energy ball after ball. He may not give that many runs in tests because batsmen take less risks and do not chase wide deliveries, but he will not get many wickets either. In ODIs and T20s he gves too much width and gets hit for atleast one 4 per over if not more. That is why he does not get a chance to play limited over games.

But he has better record than PK in ODIs and their economy rates are not much different. PK is giving 51 runs per match, Ishant is giving 57 but Ishant is averaging 32 per match, PK 36, Ishant has an SR of 33 per match, PK 42.

[express bowling]

But he has better record than PK in ODIs and their economy rates are not much different. PK is giving 51 runs per match' date=' Ishant is giving 57 but Ishant is averaging 32 per match, PK 36, Ishant has an SR of 33 per match, PK 42.[/quote'] PK is not a wicket taker in ODIs and these days he has become very expensive too. He should be dropped, especially in conditions where the ball is not swinging. I am not comparing Ishant with other Indian pacers -- all are bad to mediocre in limited over games. But, in absolute terms, if ishant made the batsmen play more often in tests and gave less width in limited over games, he could become a potent bowler, especially if he could sort out his seam issue. I always feel that he listens to too many advisors and gets a bit confused as to what he should do.

[mishra]

:hysterical: Foreign coaches and experts is a short term solution. It's at grass root levels that needs a shift of several magnitudes to produce quality fast bowlers.

+1... We need to make green tops and play on it. Almost every alternate game has to be on green tops. Even if that means playing in monsoon season or having to play games in Kochi, Gangtok,Cherrapunji or Pondichesherry Also Our easy fix solution to phaast boiling has put us in no mans land. Our spin bowling has suffred handsomely

[adi B]

yadav, aaron must be given chances to play in more test matches nd odi`s regularly, they will bcome very good bowlers.. steyn,morkel bowl in all format, so should aaron nd yadav... ireally believe these feckin trundlers are useless, give way to yadav nd aaron , vk can play odi`s, get nehra back in odi`s also munaf, if required, give wagh a chance in odi`s, save zak for tests

[mishra]

BTW why werent Aaron, Yadav, Zaheer available for the Asia cup???? Poor selection or/and fitness???? Fitness of bowlers is another area where we can improve to make significant positive adjustment in our overall bowling quality

[mishra]

yadav, aaron must be given chances to play in more test matches nd odi`s regularly, they will bcome very good bowlers.. steyn,morkel bowl in all format, so should aaron nd yadav... ireally believe these feckin trundlers are useless, give way to yadav nd aaron , vk can play odi`s, get nehra back in odi`s also munaf, if required, give wagh a chance in odi`s, save zak for tests

Anaother big flaw, Apparently in selecting 15 players squad there is no input from the captains... Chika is selecting them....

[Mariyam]

I maybe in the minority, but I feel that our full strength bowling is not that weak. A Bowling attack of Munaf Patel, Ashish ' Gunda' Nehra and Zaheer ' I'd injure myself even while walking the ramp' Khan when 100% fit are a good bowling attack. Munaf has the ability to bowl the same good length consistently. Nehra can throw in a few good accurate overs and Zaheer's variations get the better of batsmen more often than not. If we can groom a few more bowlers of the same caliber, we will continue dominating ODIs as our batting line up is far too strong. This line up did play an instrumental part in winning us the WC. In my view, we're still the best ODI team out there. All we need from our coaches is to work on the fitness regimes of our existing strike bowlers and develop the promising talents. Maybe Umesh can be groomed to be a class act like Zaheer in the coming few months. (* mandatory cricket post)

[daryl1985]

I maybe in the minority, but I feel that our full strength bowling is not that weak. A Bowling attack of Munaf Patel, Ashish ' Gunda' Nehra and Zaheer ' I'd hurt myself even while walking a ramp' Khan when 100% fit are a good bowling attack. Munaf has the ability to bowl the same good length consistently. Nehra can throw in a few good accurate overs and Zaheer's variations get the better of batsmen more often than not. If we can groom a few more bowlers of the same caliber, we will continue dominating ODIs as our batting line up is far too strong. This line up did play an instrumental part in winning us the WC. In my view, we're still the best ODI team out there. All we need from our coaches is to work on the fitness regimes of our existing strike bowlers and develop the promising talents. Maybe Umesh can be groomed to be a class act like Zaheer in the coming few months. (* mandatory cricket post)

Bowling in tests is the far bigger issue as we will always have the batting firepower to win us matches but in tests we need wicket takers.

[rkt.india]

I maybe in the minority, but I feel that our full strength bowling is not that weak. A Bowling attack of Munaf Patel, Ashish ' Gunda' Nehra and Zaheer ' I'd injure myself even while walking the ramp' Khan when 100% fit are a good bowling attack. Munaf has the ability to bowl the same good length consistently. Nehra can throw in a few good accurate overs and Zaheer's variations get the better of batsmen more often than not. If we can groom a few more bowlers of the same caliber, we will continue dominating ODIs as our batting line up is far too strong. This line up did play an instrumental part in winning us the WC. In my view, we're still the best ODI team out there. All we need from our coaches is to work on the fitness regimes of our existing strike bowlers and develop the promising talents. Maybe Umesh can be groomed to be a class act like Zaheer in the coming few months. (* mandatory cricket post)

Agra se chhutti kab mili.:giggle:

[Mariyam]

Agra se chhutti kab mili.:giggle:

:thumbs_down: Lame retort. Please, my post is an analytical take on the Indian team's bowling. I don't entertain or encourage such frivolous banter in such serious matters. :P

[rkt.india]

:thumbs_down: Lame retort. Please, my post is an analytical take on the Indian team's bowling. I don't entertain or encourage such frivolous banter in such serious topics. :P

:hatsoff: Someone coming from Agra can only write post like that. Ashish Nehra...are you serious?:nervous:

[Stuge]

^^^I'm sick of hearing this again and again that this wasn't our full strength bowling .Fact is they were selected to play ,and they performed accordingly .you will seldom see our best (if there are any ) bowlers playing all at the same time .

[adi B]

I maybe in the minority, but I feel that our full strength bowling is not that weak. A Bowling attack of Munaf Patel, Ashish ' Gunda' Nehra and Zaheer ' I'd injure myself even while walking the ramp' Khan when 100% fit are a good bowling attack. Munaf has the ability to bowl the same good length consistently. Nehra can throw in a few good accurate overs and Zaheer's variations get the better of batsmen more often than not. If we can groom a few more bowlers of the same caliber, we will continue dominating ODIs as our batting line up is far too strong. This line up did play an instrumental part in winning us the WC. In my view, we're still the best ODI team out there. All we need from our coaches is to work on the fitness regimes of our existing strike bowlers and develop the promising talents. Maybe Umesh can be groomed to be a class act like Zaheer in the coming few months. (* mandatory cricket post)

i agree with u that our full strength odi bowling aint bad at all, but we hardly have the bowlers fit, so mostly we have to play the back up trundlers in the series... but but but in tests, we are sh1t , no denying, i really hope yadav,aaron are given ample chances nd am pretty sure they will be genuine wicket takers with good strike rates rather than run stoppers

[The Realist]

The bowling is dire in all formats. In ODIs unable to take wickets or restrict runs. In tests unable to take wickets or restrict runs. There was one session on the Eng tour when Eng racked up nearly 200. Its a dismal collection of trundlers (Yadav excepted) and second-rate spinners, look at it this way - none of them would get into any other major team's bowling attack. They are that poor.

[rkt.india]

^^^I'm sick of hearing this again and again that this wasn't our full strength bowling .Fact is they were selected to play ' date='and they performed accordingly .you will seldom see our best (if there are any ) bowlers playing all at the same time .[/quote'] Agree. There is no first attack right now for us. In fact, we do not have any settled bowling to call. Yadav was not our first choice pacer even in CB series where he was bowling 4th and 5th change, same is with Aaron. PK, Vinay, and later Irfan were our fist choice new ball bowlers in England and now in Aus. Leave Zak, he will barely play handful of series from now on.