Is Srinath the best Fast bowler India ever produced?

[vvvslaxman]

No.

[vvvslaxman]

Between Zak and Srinath.. both had some advantages. Zak had more guile. more aggression. Srinath is probably the most timid fast bowler i have seen. He would almost go and apologize to batsman for getting a batsman out . Having said that on certain surfaces Srinath can be dangerous .His natural stock delivery was Inswinger from just short of a length. Boy he could extract lot of bounce from the spot. With a bit more variety and guile he could have been our own Walsh.

[Junyfan]

like we pick between Inzamam,yousaf and miandad,strange phenomenon. For me it is; kapil zaheer srinath test cricket is everything,and should be the basic scale.

[NareshK]

Kapil Dev - picked more wickets in tests than any other seamer from sub continent Zaheer Khan - 295 wickets speaks for itself and that too on slow, Indian wickets. He was instrumental in winning the World Cup. Srinath - was a great bowler, genuinely quick but could have been even better if he had been supported by another decent seamer from the other end.

[vvvslaxman]

Both Srinath and Zak had great county success. The year Kumble and Srinath ruled county cricket http://cricketarchive.com/Archive/Events/0/Britannic_Assurance_County_Championship_1995/Bowling_by_Wickets.html Zak also took 78 wickets in a season. Makes me wonder why more players don't go through the rigors of county cricket to become a better bowler. BCCI should seriously give up their stance on county participation.

[panther]

Kapil dev has a strike rate of a spinner :cantstop:

[NareshK]

Kapil dev has a strike rate of a spinner :cantstop:

He never had to tamper the ball to pick wickets though. :cantstop:

[Austin 3:!6]

He never had to tamper the ball to pick wickets though. :cantstop:

:two_thumbs_up::two_thumbs_up: Has any Pakistani phaaast bowlers picked wickets without ball tampering? :omg:

[kruiser]

Anil Kumble

[India-KXIP fan]

Kapil dev has a strike rate of a spinner :cantstop:

He never had to tamper the ball to pick wickets though. :cantstop:

O snap! :haha: Anyway: Chandigardh's Kapil Dev Zaheer Srinath

[vvvslaxman]

Kapil dev has a strike rate of a spinner :cantstop:

Seam picking ahem

[tothepoint]

He never had to tamper the ball to pick wickets though. :cantstop:

:hysterical::hysterical:

[Gunner]

Srinath is probably the most timid fast bowler i have seen. He would almost go and apologize to batsman for getting a batsman out .

:hysterical: I remember him apologizing to Ponting after hitting him on the head and Ponting asking him to feck off.

[Ultimate_Game]

:hysterical: I remember him apologizing to Ponting after hitting him on the head and Ponting asking him to feck off.

Yup. That was the only time I have ever seen a batsman slagging off a fast bowler after being hit. And Srinath just turned around and walked back to his bowling mark with his head bowed :(( Here's the clip of the incident... [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gU8mb7Nj9xU]Javagal Srinath hits Ricky Ponting on face - YouTube[/ame]

[NareshK]

:hysterical: I remember him apologizing to Ponting after hitting him on the head and Ponting asking him to feck off.

He didnt apologize to him. He just asked him if he was okay but Ponting acted like a dick.

[NameGoesHere]

For those who don't know, this is as good a thread as any to introduce fast bowlers Mohammed Nissar and Amar Singh who played for India in the 1930s. Their Test careers were painfully short, 6 Tests for Nissar and 7 for Amar Singh, so their respective bowling averages of 28.28 and 30.64 may not be reflective of their abilities. Suffice to say they were very highly regarded by their international opponents. FWIW, their stats against the international teams that visitsed India (for 'unofficial Tests') were much better. If their FC records are any indicator- Amar Singh played 92 games at an average of 18.35 and Nissar 93 games at 17.60. Stunning, and unsurpassed I think by any Indian pacer in FC (but I could be wrong). Amar Singh had a Ranji bowling average of some 16. Some three or four decades after he played him, Len Hutton in 1970 said of Amar Singh that there was no better bowler then playing. Wally Hammond said that Singh "came off the pitch like a crack of doom". Nissar and Singh were India's first great fast bowling duo, and it pains me to say that as a pair, in independent India at least, they may yet stand unsurpassed. http://www.espncricinfo.com/india/content/player/26228.html http://www.espncricinfo.com/india/content/player/31791.html And as for Zaheer, Srinath and Dev, I think they were all there and thereabouts. Nothing much to separate them, but if someone held a gun to my head I'd say Srinath, Dev, Zaheer.

[msb1991]

Kapil dev has a strike rate of a spinner :cantstop:

I never understand the obsession with strike rate. If you bowl a team out for 250, does it matter if they scored 250 in 70 overs or 75 overs? Seems insignificant to me. I think economy rate is more important than strike rate, for bowlers with the same average. A low economy rate means pressure is building which can help get wickets from the other end. The so called 'wicket-taker' can detriment his team mates if he concedes a high economy rate. Or at least, that is the neglected other side of the argument.

[game_changerr]

He never had to tamper the ball to pick wickets though. :cantstop:

:two_thumbs_up:neither he had to use bottle caps,boot spikes or even eat the cricket balls:cantstop:

[panther]

I never understand the obsession with strike rate. If you bowl a team out for 250, does it matter if they scored 250 in 70 overs or 75 overs? Seems insignificant to me. I think economy rate is more important than strike rate, for bowlers with the same average. A low economy rate means pressure is building which can help get wickets from the other end. The so called 'wicket-taker' can detriment his team mates if he concedes a high economy rate. Or at least, that is the neglected other side of the argument.

Not a problem if you have bowlers averaging under 25

[Lurker]

Well surely Kapil is a better all rounder and a world cup winning captain. But as a bowler' date=' I guess Srinath is better than Dev. [b']Whats your opinion, who is the best fast bowler India ever produced?

Not sure if you are seriously interested in knowing this, but if you are here goes. Srinath - Srinath was the fastest bowler amongst Kapil,Srinath,Zaheer lot. In fact for the better part of 90s Srinath was one of the fastest bowler around. And that is saying something considering he was competing against Ambrose, Donald, Waqar etc. He has a beautiful inswinging delivery that would bounce sort of a good length and come at a brisk pace at you. His problem was he lacked variety and sometimes could disintegrate mentally. This was more evident in LOI where he leaked runs. Test cricket was probably where he was more comfortable. He was more useful with a bit of swing in wicket, as witnessed in Calcutta where he ran through South Africans and Pakistanis, and in England. Zaheer Khan - At his peak Zaheer Khan was the craftiest of the three. His peak, unfortunately for India, was only a couple of years. But during those years he was as goos as Wasim Akram. While Zaheer lacked Akram's pace, he was even better in "holding" the ball. Almost like Erapalli Prasanna. The batsman would move forward or back but find the ball not there, like on a string. Zaheer was/is very strong mentally and the batsmen could never get on top of him. But sadly inspite of his talent, he bloomed late (famously after being dropped) and then lasted only a few years on top. Kapil Dev - Indian fast bowling is BK and AK (Before Kapil and After Kapil). That should tell you all you need to know about who is greatest. People forget that in the series prior to Kapil's debut Indian bowling was opened by Amarnath and Sunil Gavaskar (Ghavri being more conventional). In fact Vishwanath had quipped once how for a while Indian fielders had to learn how to shine the new ball (for Kapil) since the practice always was to roll the ball on the ground from delivery 1 to make it good for the spinners. People, specially non-Indians, forget that Kapil within a matter of 3 years had broken many records. He once held the most number of wickets in a calendar year (which was broken by Dennis Lillee). His heyday was till about 60th odd Tests during which he hurt his knee and never really recovered. If you use a cut-off of say 200 wickets you may be surprised by how good he was. Hadlee achieved it in 44 Tests Imran achieved it in 45 Tests Marshall in 42 Kapil in 50 But look close and you will see that Hadlee, Imran and Kapil they all took exactly 81 innings to get there! That tells you all you need to know about Kapil. he was as good as the best of his time. But he was a lone wolf and hence often did not get to bowl as most other top bowlers did. lack of support didnt help either. Plus till his very last day he was one of the two best fielders in the side (Azhar would be the only one better than him). Not like Zaheer or Srinath who needed to be hidden in field often. Kapil FTW!! :bootyshake: