Indian fast bowling attack have grown into a force to reckon with in recent years
Indian fast bowling attack have grown into a force to reckon with in recent years. The group of four comprising Ishant Sharma, Mohammed Shami, Jasprit Bumrah and Umesh Yadav bagged 95 wickets between themselves in 2019 at a record average of 15.16 hence capping off their best calendar-year performance. Such were their dominance that in their last Test at home, in Kolkata with the pink ball, the spinners were wicketless in both the innings. Following their successful calendar year performance, bowling coach Bharat Arun revealed the working behind the scenes, the key factors that have led to their dominance and their key skillset.
While the rise in pace attack has been largely noticeable under the captaincy of Virat Kohli over the last two years, Arun is of the opinion that India always had good fast bowlers. He exemplified his point with the names of Munaf Patel, RP Singh, Zaheer Khan, Ashish Nehra and Irfan Pathan, before admitting that "there were multiple factors that affected fast bowlers" although each of them had their required skill set.
"Over-bowling was one. The monitoring of workload was missing. There was lack of sufficient rest. And under-bowling too was an important factor. It all boiled down to individual conditioning. There has to be a lot of dialogue between the coach, the physio and the trainer. Only when a bowler begins to tell you how he feels, and shares his thoughts, beliefs and fears completely, will it allow the people around the bowler to manage him efficiently," he explained in an interview with Times of India.
When asked about skill set, Arun added, "The philosophy that we’ve driven forward is ‘be consistent’ and ‘make the batsman play’," before explaining his point with Jasprit Bumrah's spell in Perth where he had beaten the batsman several times and was consistent with his bowling.
The other key factor that makes this bowling attack strong, as pointed out by Arun, is honesty.
"Ahead of the Sydney Test, Ishant Sharma came up and said he wouldn’t be able to play because he was facing some discomfort. The team decided to go in with three fast bowlers and included Kuldeep. After the Australian series, Bumrah was supposed to travel to New Zealand. But he came up and said, ‘I’m really feeling tired (after the Oz series). I’ve given everything’. Of course he had. He took his break, went back home, took some rest and stayed fresh for the next series. Much of the credit here goes to Virat (Kohli) and Ravi (Shastri) for making this space available to the players," said Arun.
India have their next Test campaign in February 2020 when they take on New Zealand in an away two-match series
