Slowdown in the fast lane

While Bumrah and Siraj are in a league of their own, the fast bowling core group has been considerably weakened and plenty of work lies ahead in strengthening it, writes Sidney Kiran.

One of the most significant contributions of Virat Kohli as a captain of the Indian cricket team was the creation of a strong set of fast bowlers, where even the back-up acts could easily step in during the absence of lead performers and deliver the goods.

Kohli’s first sniff at Test captaincy came during the opening Test of the 2014-15 Border-Gavaskar Trophy in Brisbane against Australia. Kohli finished that series knowing he would be taking over as the leader of the Indian team after MS Dhoni announced his retirement following the third Test at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.

India ended up losing that series 2-0 and the primary reason behind that was Indian pacers’ inability to clean up Australia. The hosts went on to score over 500 runs in the first innings of all the four Tests and India’s goose was cooked there itself.

This was one of India’s biggest headaches for decades. Barring a phase here or there, they constantly struggled to piece together a potent combination of three to four fast bowlers, which is critical to achieve success abroad. Until Kohli’s ascension to Test captaincy, India, who were almost unbeatable at home as the conveyor belt of top-class spinners and batters hardly broke down, had never won a Test series in Australia.

Jibes like “Tigers at home, lambs abroad” were uncharitable but not unfounded. Kohli, who considered Test cricket as the ultimate challenge, wanted to change that perception of India. He desired to be as successful away as at home.

So when Kohli took charge of the Test team before the Sri Lanka series in August 2015, he and head coach Ravi Shastri laid out a blueprint for it — form a core group of fast bowlers. During Kohli and Shastri’s initial years, it was Ishant Sharma, Mohammed Shami, Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Umesh Yadav who were the lead acts.

The arrival of Hardik Pandya in 2017 as a fast-bowling all-rounder added more muscle and depth to the team. Kohli and Shastri also figured that the trio of Ishant, Bhuvneshwar and Umesh were getting older, but by the time they were nearing the exit, they had superb replacements in Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Siraj — the former making his debut in South Africa in December 2018 and the latter in Australia exactly two years later. Bumrah and Siraj ended up forming the core with Shami, while guys like Navdeep Saini, Shardul Thakur, Jaydev Unadkat and T Natarajan chipped in whenever there were injuries to the main guys.

End result, India won two successive series in Australia (2018-19, 2020-21, although Kohli didn’t captain all the matches in the second triumph). In fact, Kohli went on to become India’s most successful Test captain, winning 40 of 68 games he led in, losing 17 and drawing 11. More than the success, it was the wealth of fast bowlers that was the envy of the cricketing world.

The scenario, though, looks a bit bleak now on the fast lane with the recently concluded series in England, which India drew 2-2, showing how much rebuilding the current set-up has to do. Bumrah could only play three Test matches and given how fragile the 31-year-old’s body has become following years of wear and tear, it’s unlikely the Gujarati will ever play three matches on the bounce.

Siraj, who played all 10 matches against Australia and England, is built like a tank but the Hyderabadi too is 31 and how long will his body be able to take such a punishing workload only time will tell. These two are the undisputed leaders of the current era and without them, the rest look a bit raw. Akash Deep and Prasidh Krishna fared well with 13 and 14 wickets respectively but it was evident they needed the constant inputs of Siraj to maintain their shape. In moments when Siraj was out of the field following a long spell, Akash or Prasidh would easily go astray.

India debuted Anshul Kamboj in Manchester, and it was a baptism that went berserk. The Haryana seamer, who had been making waves on the domestic circuit, could barely clock past 130 kmph as England went on a rampage. The options in front of the selectors, in red-ball cricket specifically, aren’t also encouraging, with only Mukesh Kumar having made some impact, and the likes of Avesh Khan, Yash Dayal, Arshdeep Singh, Harshit Rana, Vyshak Vijaykumar, and Vidwath Kaverappa yet to be tested on the big stage. There’s Mayank Yadav and Umrah Malik too, both youngsters blessed with raw pace, but yet to make it big on the domestic circuit either. So there’s potential, but the grooming has to be done over the next year, with India scheduled to play their next away series in Sri Lanka in August 2026, which will be followed by a trip to New Zealand.

“It’s important for us to look at the future and get a good core of five, six bowlers that we can rotate, and these guys can come in and they can do their jobs. At the moment, there’s not a lot of experience with the ball. We’ve got Siraj, we’ve got Booms (Bumrah) who played a handful of Tests, and then Akash has played a little bit, but he’s out injured. So we keep on finding ways to bring new guys who have to start learning their trade in international cricket. It’s not easy at the moment, but this is just a phase that we need now to work through and get these guys fitter and stronger to last for the last five Test matches,” said India’s fast bowling coach Morne Morkel following the Manchester Test.

Former chief selector MSK Prasad feels India need to have a lot of A games where the bench strength can be groomed for the international stage. “To start off with what we did was, we identified close to 15 to 20 fast bowlers. Creating back-ups to the main guys was a priority.

So the current set-up also needs to do that. Identify a bunch and test them in India A games. We need to have a lot of India A games and that will prepare them for the rigours of international cricket. There’s no dearth of talent in the country, there’s a lot of potential that’s waiting to be tapped, it just needs to be cultured in the right manner,” reckoned Prasad in a chat with DHoS.

“The next generation can also be blooded in with some of the seniors. That way there will be handholding and by the time the seniors are on the way out, the next crop will be ready to take over the mantle. What is happening now is cyclical but like I said there is enough talent in the country. It’s up to the selectors, the coaching staff and the management to lay down the blueprint on how they want to go about it.”

Gill, head coach Gambhir and chief selector Ajit Agarkar have their work cut out.