I’ve been cricket crazy for as long as I can remember. The earliest memory that I have is of the dull ache I felt as we slowly but surely committed Hara-kiri at Eden Gardens in WC ’96. In the last 13 years, the more Indian cricket has changed, the more it remains the same. True, we have improved in all departments and are contenders for the best team in the world. However, I couldn’t help suppressing a déjà-vu in the last two ODI’s. At Hyderabad, Sachin went solo as everyone else gave him his deserved limelight by doing as little as possible collectively circa ‘96.
At Guwahati we proved that we are still not beyond catching hold of our own jugular with a vengeance and asphyxiating ourselves, much to the delight of the bemused Australians. That got me thinking about what else hadn’t changed in the last 13 years… The answer: We didn’t have a fast bowler then, we don’t now. In fact, we’ve never had one.
When I say Fast Bowler, I mean a bowler capable of bowling a spell, if not an over at an average speed of 90+mph. The fact that Ashish Nehra bowled ONE delivery at 149.7kph in WC ’03 does not make him a fast bowler. A candidate for Ripley’s, yes, a fast bowler, no. No, Ishant Sharma, contrary to what he thinks, isn’t one either.
A tall, well built(see why Ishant doesn’t qualify? :-)!) pacer who can intimidate the batsman and force him into errors by using sheer pace and bounce has never made his way into the blues. The fact is, EVERY top cricket playing nation on the planet has had at least one fast bowler. Every one of them. Most of them have one in their current roster. Pak, SA & Aus are pretty obvious. NZ with a population of 4.5 million has discovered a Shane Bond. WI have had a number of them from Jermaine Lawson to Fidel Edwards. Their second string XI had a Roach, for god’s sake! Eng have Harmison, Flintoff and even Broad! Sri Lanka have Fernando and Malinga among the prominent ones. In comparison, India’s attack of Ashish Nehra, Munaf Patel and Praveen Kumar are rated as LMF, RMF and RM by cricinfo (RM!! Would you believe it! The same as Ganguly!) An aussie attack of Lee, Johnson and Siddle were rated as RF, LF and RFM. Herein lies the difference. Why are we the only nation without a single fast bowler? Many theories have been given, all of which can be discredited with minimal effort.
We are too nice: The most ridiculous hypothesis, given by none other than the batting great Geoffrey Boycott. He actually said that most Indians were nice and lacked the aggression to be fast bowlers, due to their Hindu upbringing and innate hospitality. Anyone who knows a little about the casteist, sexist, puritanical Indian knows that he is not a nice person. If people have been nice to you Mr. Boycott, it is because you are an affluent Caucasian. No offence intended. It is an innate, irksome subservience that makes them nice and not the fact that they are Hindus.
We don’t have supportive pitches: I don’t think the pitches are any different in Pakistan, Sri Lanka or Bangladesh. If anything, we have comparatively better pitches.
We don’t eat meat: I think it is sufficient to say that a lot of us do eat meat these days. At the very least, a sufficient number eat meat to produce a minimum of one fast bowler. This quibble is refined to include only red meat. To be more particular, beef. This is used to conveniently differentiate India from its neighbours. I must admit that beef consumption is on the lower side in India. However, people forget that Indians have many minority communities who do consume beef. We have 100 million Muslims, 20 million Christians and 5 million Zoroastrians and East Indians. Have any of these communities produced a first rate fast bowler?
We have genetic and physical shortcomings: This seems unlikely as not all fast bowlers have superior physiques. Aamer, for example, looks every bit a 17 year old kid except for when he hurls the cherry at 150kph. And even if a majority of Indians are genetically crippled, that still leaves a huge number of people taking into account our 1 billion+ population.
What else can it be? Flawed selection which gives stress to line and length? Not really, as we had a fast bowling competition in India for amateurs which was won by an effort of 135kph! What else? The truth is, I don’t know. I didn’t in 1996, I don’t today….
I rest my case.
By Rohit Pillai
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