India's Pace History.
Ever thought why India did not have world class pacemen except for a few handful? Ever thought why India has more than often struggled to play on fast and bouncy tracks? To answer one, you need the answer to the other.
Other teams have had match winning fast bowlers who could bring down the opposition's batting at the blow of a whistle. There have been few cases that were dominated by batsmen but not before the pacers had instilled fear in them. Aussies had McGraths, Lees,Gillespies; Proteas had Donalds,Pollocks; Pakistan had Imrans,Akrams, Waqars, Akhtars; Windies had the Marshalls, Walshes, Ambroses; India had Kumbles.. (oops! perhaps he is a spinner. Apologies to Kumble but he has been the only match winning bowler for India that I can remember)
Around in 1950s and 60s, India had makeshift pacers who were used only to wear down the shine of the ball and give the spinners enough cracks in the pitch by running down the pitch.
After enough overs of wearing and tearing both the ball and pitch, it used to be spinners all day long for the rest of the days. Unfortunately this strategy worked only in the subcontinent and elsewhere Indian spinners were at sea to get the batsmen out. Of course, nothing being taken away from spinners like Chandrashekar & Bedi who were oblivious of the pitch and used the bounce and flight to their maximum usage when it mattered.
Around late 1970s, there was an emergence of one of the greatest pacers in the world. Kapil Dev was a late bloomer and not until 1982 was he considered as a regular in the team. He got most of his wickets on the dead subcontinent wickets but never was considered lethal and didnt have the pace to torment the seasoned Aussie and English batsmen. Every other Indian "pacer" during his time fell under his umbra and never got the distinction of being a strike bowler. Maybe we were content enough at having found a bloke who runs more than 15 yards away from the pitch.Any wicket he took was a bonus. Ironically, this man went on to break the world record of the number of wickets taken. Werent we surprised?
After Kapil Dev's retirement, time went back to the traditional way of taking wickets. Kumble's emergence left little doubt. Javagal Srinath was the only class pacer left in the country. Seamers were brought in but they hardly made an impression to be retained for more than a couple of matches. A few who showed promise were Venkatesh Prasad and Ajit Agarkar but they became predicatable as soon as they exhausted their little bag of tricks.
The turn of the century brought along a bunch of left arm pacers who showed real pace and extra-ordinary talent. Zaheer Khan and Ashish Nehra, the first among equals to break on the scene provided a pace-starved India with a good opening bowling attack. For the first time in the history of Indian cricket, was a balanced side with great batsmen, great fielders, great spinners and really good pacers. Zaheer had the inswinging toe-crunching yorkers while Nehra had fast outswingers. India went on to reach the finals before being brought down by the world conquering Aussies.
Soon after, an extraordinary young talent was spotted on the streets of Baroda, and was got to the international scene. Another left arm seamer but this one was here to stay. Irfan Pathan had a knack of picking up early wickets. Prodigious swinging deliveries both incoming and outgoing was his trademark. What he lacked in pace, he made up with the arial movement of the ball. Balaji also was marked as another emerging fast bowler. An inspiring Australian tour promoted Pathan and Balaji to the main strike bowlers throwing off Nehra out of the side and Zaheer as the next change bowler. Even though injuries left Balaji in a lurch, Irfan continued his good showing with the ball.After having being spotted for his sound batting technique Pathan was promoted to a higher batting position and was token'ed as an all-rounder. One might just get the feeling that his extra focus on batting in recent times might be the reason of his lack at getting wickets at the same strike rate he used to earlier.
This year, R.P Singh, Munaf Patel and Sreesanth have shown excellent promise with good pace enough to trouble the batsmen. While Sreesanth showed that the use of the crease and seam can be used to get wickets leaving out the pitch factor, Munaf showed that India have the firepower to give the opposition batting order a taste of their own medicine.
Unlike ten years back, India now truly has a formidable bowling attack and if well nurtured can form the core of the team's future bowling prospects.
