Indian bowling is ordinary: Holding

A forthright Michael Holding on Saturday termed the Indian bowling attack as “ordinary”, with most of them like Ishant Sharma starting off as quicks and then losing out on pace.

“It’s ordinary. That’s all I can say. I’ve seen a few fast bowlers, who come in and bowl quick when they start, but they don’t last which is unfortunate. Something is going wrong. I don’t know if it’s the training or whatever,” Holding told reporters here.
He cited the example of Ishant, who went off the boil after starting as an out and out quick bowler.

“Look at Ishant Sharma. When he came in, he was quick. Now he’s no longer quick. He’s not the only one. I’ve seen it happen to quite a few others too. They are still good bowlers, but the pace is not there and they don’t create as much havoc as they should,” Holding explained.

The Jamaican pointed out  that players spend a long time at the gym to get fit but are not running enough.

“I was chatting with Sudhir Naik about all the theory that’s going into fast bowling and stuff like bio-mechanics and everything. They are still breaking down. There is too much theory. Going into the gym is great but some of them over do the gym. They need to do more running and less gym,’’ he added.

“Hitting the gym is good but there is too much emphasis on gym now. And what happens is they get big and powerful and don’t stretch enough and the slightest bit of stretching causes them to tear a muscle,” Holding said.

“Remember one thing, if you don’t have muscle, you can’t tear it,’’ he added.
He was all praise for Dale Steyn but said the South African may not last long due to excessive cricket being played these days.

“Yeah, he’s the best fast bowler that’s around. He’s fantastic. But he’s playing so much cricket, how much is he going to last? I don’t see a lot of fast bowlers in the world anymore. In the 70s, 80s and even 90s, every team had one or two genuine fast bowlers. When I say fast bowler, I don’t mean someone who is running in from the fence, I mean someone really fast,” he said.