Ruthlessly efficient. How often have we used those words in conjunction to describe India’s fast bowlers on home turf? And not just any fast bowlers, but those young in both age and experience so far as international cricket is concerned.
It’s been a productive fortnight for the national team, not because it completed expected conquests of an out-of-its-depth Afghanistan in the one-off Test in New Chandigarh and the three One-Day Internationals that followed, but for the personnel that drove these outcomes. True, the established names stepped up – skipper Shubman Gill and K.L. Rahul and Ishan Kishan readily spring to mind from a batting standpoint, with Rohit Sharma and Yashavi Jaiswal just a half-notch below. But it’s the success of a slew of relative newcomers in the bowling department that has sparked genuine excitement and the promise that tomorrow might not be as bleak as feared.
India bid goodbye to the magic of R. Ashwin some 18 months back. The Tamil Nadu off-spinner’s destroyer-in-arms, fellow tweaker Ravindra Jadeja, isn’t too far from riding away into the Test sunset. Mohammed Shami seems to be permanently out of favour for no fault of his other than, one suspects, ruffling the egos of a few good men. Jasprit Bumrah’s protesting body needs careful monitoring, Kuldeep Yadav seems to have hit a trough. A host of fast bowlers who arrived with hype and hoopla are gasping for relevance, among them Mukesh Kumar, Akashdeep Singh and Anshul Kamboj. Among the fans, if not among those who have been carefully charting the progress of the next rung, a sense of despondency was beginning to creep in.
It’s against this uncertain backdrop that the developments of the last two weeks must be viewed, weighed, measured and judged. The temptation to write off early successes as the by-products of a combination of beginners’ luck and a weak opposition might be huge, but it’s worth remembering that the likes of Manav Suthar and Gurnoor Brar and Prince Yadav themselves aren’t exactly established household names. In some ways, they were in the same boat as their opponents, having to conquer gremlins of self-doubt, having to grapple with thoughts of whether they belonged at the highest level. Which is exactly what makes their early statements at the highest level so impressive.
Suthar has stolen an early march in the quest to become a long-term weapon in the spinning arsenal in the red-ball game. The decision-makers in Indian cricket have been tracking him for a couple of years and, convinced that in the longer version his left-arm spin was a more potent threat than the same brand offered by Harsh Dubey, threw him into the deep end in New Chandigarh. The 23-year-old didn’t disappoint; he got a wicket with his fourth ball in Test cricket, went on to pick up six wickets in his first innings as a Test bowler and finished the game with the Player of the Match award. It was a grand debut for one so young and with so much to offer. That he has since travelled to England to play for Warwickshire in the English County Championship is great news because even though the county game is no longer the finishing school as it once used to be, there is so much to learn for a young overseas spinner in England at this time of the summer when there isn’t a lot of assistance from the playing surfaces.
India play two Tests in Sri Lanka in August and Suthar can expect to link up alongside Jadeja (if fully fit) and Washington Sundar should the leadership group opts to look for greater batting depth too and therefore looks beyond Kuldeep. But as heartening as Suthar’s initiation has been, it’s the emergence of a small bunch of faster bowlers that will gladden the hearts of Gill and head coach Gautam Gambhir.
Surprise pick
Gurnoor was a somewhat contentious selection to the Test squad, ahead of Auqib Nabi, the 29-year-old from Jammu and Kashmir who has taken more than 100 wickets in the last two Ranji Trophy seasons and whose 60 wickets were crucial to the State lifting the title for the first time earlier this year. Gurnoor, 26, has fewer First Class wickets in a three-year career than Nabi in the season gone by alone, but his height (1.94 metres) and high pace are the points of difference. In the highest decision-making echelons, Nabi is seen as a bowler reliant on conditions – even though he took wickets across pitches of varying character throughout the whole of the last two years – whereas Brar is perceived as someone who can extract life anywhere, owing to his ability to procure steep bounce and his speed through the air.
Given the slant towards spin and the presence of Mohammed Siraj and Prasidh Krishna, the heroes of the series-levelling win in the Oval Test last August, Gurnoor warmed the bench in the one-off Test but impressed on his international debut in the truncated ODI in Dharamshala with three for 27. He took three more wickets in Lucknow on a shirtfront on which India posted more than 400, and rounded off the series with a somewhat expensive one for 49 at Chepauk on Saturday. Seven wickets from three home ODIs are terrific returns for a 26-year-old in his first international foray and he has already made an early pitch for consideration for the 2027 50-over World Cup, which will be played on fresh, early-season pitches in South Africa, among other places, from next October.
“Yes, he did tick most of the boxes but there are some things that he can only learn from experience and hopefully, he is going to keep growing as a bowler,” Gill acknowledged. “If I am to be really critical, he did go for a little bit of runs. He was a little bit inconsistent at times, but he is young, he is playing his first series at the top level and he is bowling quick. He has got all the good signs that we want from a young, tall, fast bowler. And with experience, he is only going to get better.”
It’s obvious that chief selector Ajit Agarkar and his panel have invested a lot in Gurnoor, part of the targeted players that the BCCI and the CoE believe have the skills and the potential to make it to the next level and perform consistently there. Gurnoor is clearly a work in progress, which is only to be expected, but his height and pace are assets that should come in handy going forward. Hitherto, India’s pace bowling has revolved around Jasprit Bumrah (of course) and Siraj, with Harshit Rana looming as a third option when he isn’t injured. Now, there is a greater pool of players making a strong pitch, among them Prasidh, also tall like Gurnoor and also pacy, but with a lot more experience than Gurnoor, Prince and Nabi.
Prasidh Krishna claimed career-best figures of five for 23 in the Chennai ODI.
| Photo Credit:
R. RAGU
Prasidh finally seems to have shaken off the injury bug that has blighted his career; armed with greater confidence after his exploits in England, he is a more potent force who understands his bowling and the conditions a lot better. The fuller lengths he hit in bouncy Chennai on Saturday netted him his maiden international five-for, a definitive shot in the arm as he seeks to continue to be the prime force among the next crop, behind Bumrah and Siraj and Arshdeep Singh, who is only now beginning to get a decent run after a largely exclusive T20I career.
With Nitish Kumar lining up as a fast-bowling all-rounder, a rarity in Indian cricket, alongside Hardik Pandya, and Harshit, Gurnoor, Prince and Nabi slotting in as serious contenders, the Indian fast-bowling cupboard looks a lot fuller than it was a couple of years back. Much of it has also to do with the streamlining process in which the Centre of Excellence in Bengaluru, under the stewardship of V.V.S. Laxman, has had a big but hardly publicised role to play. Troy Cooley worked tirelessly with the upcoming crop and can reflect on a job well done as he puts his feet up, having now exceeded the age threshold of 60. There was a time, when the leadership duo of Virat Kohli and Ravi Shastri ruled the roost, when India’s pace battery was the envy of most of the rest of the cricketing world. India haven’t yet got there, but there is no reason, if these young men keep their feet on the ground and are disciplined enough to ward off fitness-related injuries, they can’t reach those lofty heights again in the next couple of years.
“It’s fantastic,” Ryan ten Doeschate, the assistant coach, crowed the other day of the influx of pace riches all over again. “One of the big things when this coaching staff started out was always going to be the transition of the bowlers, particularly with guys like Shami not playing anymore. A couple of weeks ago when we got together in Chandigarh, to see those three young guys coming in and bowl, it was literally like a wow moment. The way Gurnoor has bowled in his first two games, to see a young Indian pacer hit 147, 148 (kmph) again, I’m sure you guys are all excited as we are.
“To balance the experience that this (ODI) team has — the guys have played a lot of cricket and won a lot of trophies – and to augment the talent and the experience and get them up to speed really, really quickly is going to be the challenge. We have to pick the best guys to do the job, which is obviously going to be the final piece of the puzzle. You need both elements — you need the experience and you continuously need to fill the pipeline with new guys coming in. You’ll agree that this squad is going to be in a very good space.”
Prince Yadav celebrates his maiden international wicket in the Lucknow ODI.
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SHASHI SHEKHAR KASHYAP
With two of their next three Test series in the subcontinent, the coaching group’s brief will revolve around keeping the quicks fresh, relevant and topped up skill-wise with the longer World Cup as the ultimate goal. A larger pool will work as an insurance against injuries and loss of form, a luxury that hasn’t always been available to the Indians in the recent past. The signs are encouraging, but these are very early days yet and it’s important for all concerned to dip into the past and realise that the need of the hour is cautious optimism (well merited), not self-defeating, over-the-top grandstanding.