In Indian cricket, traditionally, fast bowling has been an also-ran overshadowed by its great batting and spin attack. That conventional wisdom, has happily, been turned on its head. Little wonder that the results, specially abroad, were never up to the team’s potential. On the cusp of a New Year, that appears to have changed with one mighty blow stuck in India’s favour. After 37 years, India won a test match in Australia’s Melbourne, and is a step away from a historic maiden test victory. The credit for India’s turnaround as a cricket playing nation must go to its fast bowlers. In the trio of Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammad Shami and Ishant Sharma, India have found true match winners, inviting comparisons with the torrid West Indies pacers of the yore. Between them, they have captured 134 test wickets away from home, the most in a calendar year. 

In doing so, they have eclipsed a 34-year-old record set by no less than West Indians Malcolm Marshall, Michael Holding, and Joel Garner, who between them had claimed 130 wickets in away tours in the hey day of Windies cricket in 1984. Just how effective they have been can be gauged from the fact that Indian pacers have scalped 47 Aussie wickets in the three test matches so far, the second most by an Indian side in a series Down Under. Then again, in 2018, the Indian quickies have taken their five-wicket haul to eight, the most by an Indian attack in a year. But the pick of all of them — indeed the most sterling revelation — has been Bumrah, who with his short run up has generated so much pace that the batsmen have been caught unawares. In nine tests since his debut in January 2018, he has taken 48 wickets, the most by any pacer in his first test season. The year has certainly ended on a good note.