Seven deserving fast bowlers who sadly never got the India cap

[rkt.india]

H Natarajan lists seven fast bowlers between the 1960s and 1980s who went through a long and successful career without earning the India cap they so richly deserved.

1. Kailash Gattani (Rajasthan), 1962-63 to 1982-83

People often talk of the misfortunes of Padamkar Shivalkar and Rajinder Goel for being born in the era as the legendary spinners EAS Prasanna, Bishan Bedi, Bhagwat Chandrasekhar and S Venkataraghavan. But the same can be said for many in this list. Gattani was one of them. His First-Class tally of 396 wickets tells a story. His best of the 20 five-fors was seven for 13. He also hauled five 10-fors. And as a batsman, he had a highest of 100. He would have been an useful all-rounder for India. Probably he would have got the much-deserving India cap had he played for a stronger and influential team like Bombay or Delhi.
 

2. D Govindraj (Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh), 1964-65 to 1974-75

The 1971 Indian team to the West Indies had an untested fast bowler in D Govindraj. The Hyderabad bowler was, in fact, also part of the historic tour to England that followed the tour of the West Indies. However, he was not played in any of the eight Tests on the two tours.  A quick bowler with a nice action, Govindraj played 93 First-Class matches in a decade-long career and ended up with190 wickets, with a best of six for 38.

http://www.criclife.com/lists/chronicles/seven-deserving-fast-bowlers-who-sadly-never-got-the-india-cap-27608

[rkt.india]

Came across this article. Not sure how  many of them were really good!

[express bowling]

Nice article.

I think it is immaterial how many of them were really good.  Till the late '70s, India did not have a proper specialist seam bowler who played regularly for us. I have read that Karsan Ghavri bowled a mixture of pace and spin. It remains a mystery why we did not even  try seam bowlers in our team.

Some journalists and ex-players have often mentioned a strange and weak mindset that existed till the '70s among a few players. Supposedly, there were some influential players in the team who though that if we played quick bowlers who bowled bouncers at oppositions like WI, Australia and England then they had much better bowlers who will give back way more than what they have got in the form of quick bouncers.

Gavaskar, with his courageous mindset and clear thinking, is supposed to have changed this and called for the inclusion of more and more seam bowlers.

I remember seeing Barun Burman bowl in club games, when I was a kid . He was highly revered in local circles. Don't know high quick he actually was but looked like a proper pacer who got good carry.

 

Edited February 10, 2016 by express bowling

[rkt.india]

an article about Salganonkar 

http://www.espncricinfo.com/blogs/content/story/930939.html

[express bowling]

Pandurang Salgaoncar's case is sad.  Throughout our history, we have often ignored or given very few and interrupted chances to hostile quick bowlers and big-turning leg spinners. Srinath was one of the few exceptions.

This saga continues with Aaron getting interrupted chances after his return from injury and being completely ignored in LOIs. Samar Quadri is not even in the selectors' radar.

The biggest reason given for this is that these types of bowlers are not that accurate. Rather than developing the raw talent that exists into lethal wicket-taking bowlers..we choose to ignore them or criticize them during their developing periods.

Surprisingly...for a cricket fraternity so obsessed about accuracy...we have produced very few bowlers who would score very  highly in the accuracy department like a McGrath or a Philander.   Kumble and Kapil are the only two that would qualify in the last 35 years.

Edited February 10, 2016 by express bowling

[MechEng]

Thank god they never wore India cap, that cap has the ability to make all bowlers brain dead like Mohanty, Kuruvilla and etc.

[sscomp32]

an article about Salganonkar 

http://www.espncricinfo.com/blogs/content/story/930939.html

https://twitter.com/bhogleharsha/status/697135315710930944

He is the curator of pune pitch. 

[Mosher]

good ,i wish pune gets some test matches, the pitch looked hard as well  but if dhoni plays all the ipl matches here he will make it into a dustbowl like chennai.

Would love to see such pitches in IPL and domestic matches too. Quick bowlers will be encouraged to bowl faster on such pitches.

[Mosher]

Deleted.

Edited February 10, 2016 by Mosher

[MCcricket]

To my knowledge

Ashwin Winston Zaidi was good enough but nepotism in selections kept him out

Raju Kulkarni did not have guidance but could be fastish

Abhey Kuruvilla when he was young

Salil Ankola was promising n I have seen him bowl

Amit Bhandari was decent but picked up too late

[Texy]

Kuruvilla had so much promise. Tall bowler. Wonder what happened to him. 

[maniac]

T.A.Shekhar I heard was very quick too just didn't get a fair shot.

 

[express bowling]

Kuruvilla had so much promise. Tall bowler. Wonder what happened to him. 

Kuruvilla trained under Frank Tyson , in the much publicized " BCA-Mafatlal Fast Bowling Scheme " which was started in 1990. Salil Ankola trained there too.

He did not get a chance to play for quite some time when he was doing well in domestics and debuted for India almost 7 years later in the 1997 tour of WI when Srinath injured his rotator cuff.

It ws said that by that time Kuruvilla had almost given up hope of representing India and was not at his best. He came across as a very tall ( 6'5" ) medium-fast bowler then who got steep bounce. Did not look special then and was soon dropped after 7 or 8 months... but it is possible that he did not get a chance in his peak years when he was quicker.

[Mosher]

Kuruvilla trained under Frank Tyson , in the much publicized " BCA-Mafatlal Fast Bowling Scheme " which was started in 1990. Salil Ankola trained there too.

He did not get a chance to play for quite some time when he was doing well in domestics and debuted for India almost 7 years later in the 1997 tour of WI when Srinath injured his rotator cuff.

It ws said that by that time Kuruvilla had almost given up hope of representing India and was not at his best. He came across as a very tall ( 6'5" ) medium-fast bowler then who got steep bounce. Did not look special then and was soon dropped after 7 or 8 months... but it is possible that he did not get a chance in his peak years when he was quicker.

Kuruvilla was a quick bowler when he was young. I remember seeing Kuruvilla's bowling during India's tour to WI. He had become a trundler by then.

[youngindia]

The bowler has to show intellect and genuity in evolving himself.

frankly none of the bowlers I saw inspired confidence.

you have to analyse the game well, be dedicated to learning and adapt to problems in a career.

Kapil was superior  both because of natural ability and thinking.

srinath was not as good a thinker as say McGrath was.

prabhakar showed an ability to evolve into a swing bowler better than kulkarni did.thats a damning indictment of the faster bowlers.

Rajinder singh ghai was rated by sidhu as the fastest in india before the 90's.but a change in action spoilt his path and as usual the bowler was clueless

today irfan is clueless. ishant and umesh have succeeded partially but the initial promise was belied.

still wairting for a bowler who can think with the best in the world. ashwin is the closest we have

 

 

[express bowling]

Kuruvilla was a quick bowler when he was young. I remember seeing Kuruvilla's bowling during India's tour to WI. He had become a trundler by then.

He was definitely a bouncy fast-medium bowler in the early '90s....who slowed down somewhat in the late '90s as he lost hope of playing for India.  Did not really have the action to be an out-and-out fast bowler though.

[youngindia]

 

Gavaskar, with his courageous mindset and clear thinking, is supposed to have changed this and called for the inclusion of more and more seam bowlers.

Only 12 months ago gavaskar was recommending bhuvi and binny for the WC  because they can bat ahead of umesh and ishant.

 

he belongs to 1983 and he stays there.

 

 

[express bowling]

Only 12 months ago gavaskar was recommending bhuvi and binny for the WC  because they can bat ahead of umesh and ishant.

 

he belongs to 1983 and he stays there.

 

 

 

People change with age and become more conservative. 

I don't like his thought process now but he did ask for proper pace bowlers  when he was the captain in the '80s.

Edited February 11, 2016 by express bowling

[Mosher]

He was definitely a bouncy fast-medium bowler in the early '90s....who slowed down somewhat in the late '90s as he lost hope of playing for India.  Did not really have the action to be an out-and-out fast bowler though.

Found one video of Kuruvilla. Those horrors of watching Indian "fast" bowlers during the 90's. We had a factory of trundlers. Remember watching Tinu Yohannan, Kumaran, Mhambrey, Dodda Ganesh, Mohanty and many others with Prasad leading the pack 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1yOaZ-WX24

 

[rkt.india]

Found one video of Kuruvilla. Those horrors of watching Indian "fast" bowlers during the 90's. We had a factory of trundlers. Remember watching Tinu Yohannan, Kumaran, Mhambrey, Dodda Ganesh, Mohanty and many others with Prasad leading the pack 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1yOaZ-WX24

 

I used to read a lot about Donald Ganesh in news papers and there was a lot of coverage and talk about him being good. He then played in SA in 1996 and his deliveries could barely reach the WK. Others didn't have the same kind of talk.

Edited February 11, 2016 by rkt.india