Fast Bowling in India
The Fast Bowling battery of India has not been strong baring Kapil Dev who also not that express pace there has not been many names that have come up Javagal Srinath was fairly quick with a fast bowl hurled at 96 mph Venkatesh Prasad was quick but lost pace with age substantially the reasons for the that are the discussed in another article, but I would like to discuss some of the reasons not mentioned there.
Lack of Attitude : Wasim Akram in an interview said fast bowling is 60% mental strength and 40% practical, the yorker is not bowled at a batsmen first it is felt first in the mind of the bowler.The teaching that is prevalent in India is make a century put your head down but for fast bowling you need an attitude where you got to give a stare or a word to the batsmen but in grass root cricket in India you do that and you called blah blah.
The main thing in Attitude is not only of players but also of coaches. Take a kid to a coach if the kid is quick and wayward the first thing the coach tells the kid is forget pace and just bowling in the stumps, the kid bowls in the stumps then the coach asks him to increase the pace and this is the time 70 to 80 % fast bowlers are lost because when he increases the speed he is just the same again bowling wayward.
The great example is of Imran Khan when he was developing the two W’s and they would go wayward and try to bowl into the stumps with decreased pace he would tell them that he has picked them in the team to bowl fast and that’s what he expects them to do. On being asked about this he said you can teach a bowler to bowl in the good areas but not in teach them to bowl fast. The tendons and the expansion and contractions of muscles responsible for the speed imparted on the ball once developed can’t be altered. If you bowl slowly the tendons become like a string which is not that elastic but in fast bowlers they are like rubber band which are elastic and expand fast at the time of release that increases the speed.
Lack of imparting of knowledge : In the grass root levels in India bowlers are not taught Swing. If you have swing because of your of action then it is your only chance to swing because you are not taught the ways to swing it either the grip or the wrist position if you ask a coach how to swing he will tell you just hold it on seam and the air will do the rest still if you persist to ask you would be waded off. I know someone who has asked and was not told how to swing it. He had to learn from a video on youtube and he was a district player so i think there is lack of knowledge in the coaches too.
