By necessity, every revolution is a slow burn, much like Test cricket. The denouement is swift and decisive, but the events leading up to it are long drawn-out. A revolution eventuates because of a perceived need to change up the established order. Not each one of them is successful; the outcome is dependent on care in conceptualisation, impeccability in implementation and getting the timing right. Indian cricket got all of this spot-on, and hence this extraordinary pace revolution in a country historically hailed for its embarrassment of spinning riches.
It was inconceivable even a decade back that India’s increased impact on Test cricket would be on the back of their strength and depth in pace. True, India have a storied fast-bowling legacy dating back to their inaugural Test nearly 90 years back, when Mohammad Nissar and Amar Singh rattled England at Lord’s in 1932. At various stages subsequently, India threw up the occasional exciting paceman, but it wasn’t until Kapil Dev burst forth in the nascent stages of live television that a visible role model emerged.
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The Haryana Hurricane inspired a generation of pacers, not least Javagal Srinath, inarguably the quickest Indian for the longest of time. Running in from 20 yards and pounding the ball on dead, unresponsive home-grown tracks was a thankless job. Srinath toiled manfully for a decade and a bit, only occasionally with noteworthy support, but he had kept a fire alive that had been first ignited by Kapil.
The establishment of the MRF Pace Foundation was a significant development in the growth of fast bowlers beyond a trickle. Gradually, there was greater awareness of fitness, diet, and sports science, and a steady stream of middling to good fast bowlers burst through, none more influential than Zaheer Khan.
It took the breakthrough Indian Premier League, as well as a conscious effort by the Board of Control for Cricket in India, to fast-track the process, no pun intended. The IPL offered a platform for aspiring quicks to showcase their wares on a far larger platform than the anonymity of domestic cricket. Youngsters were able to pick the brains of such maestros as Brett Lee and Shaun Pollock, Lasith Malinga, and Dale Steyn, and pick up tricks of the trade they never had access too. Infrastructure in the Indian landscape mushroomed beyond recognition, and bowlers were encouraged to turn to bowling quick as the BCCI made it mandatory for a minimum amount of grass to be retained on pitches for first-class cricket.
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Suddenly, the faster bowlers were no longer the support act, they weren’t second-class citizens expected merely to take the shine off the ball and disappear into the outfield as the spinners spun their webs. They were accorded a status long overdue, looked upon as attacking options rather than a necessary evil. Even within the contours of an inorganic shell, the process was organic. The historic land of spin was now developing a new, more potent fang that would lend it greater venom in countries where India had struggled to compete on an equal footing.
That the wheel has come a full circle was best illustrated at Lord’s on Monday (August 16). For the second time in as many Tests on this tour of England, India went in with four pacers and a lone specialist spinner in Ravindra Jadeja. Also for the second time in two Tests, it was the four quicks who took all the wickets to fall to the bowlers. In Nottingham, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Shami, Mohammed Siraj, and Shardul Thakur had picked up all 20 wickets, only to see their valiant efforts dashed by the fickle English weather that washed out the final day’s proceedings. India were not to be denied for the second time in a row. With the seasoned Ishant Sharma slotting in for the injured Thakur, the quartet snaffled 19 wickets (Mark Wood was run out in the first innings), making it the first time India’s spinners had gone wicketless in four completed Test innings overseas.
The greatest affirmation of how far Indian pace has come was in the timing of Virat Kohli’s declaration on the final day at Lord’s. The pitch had lost whatever little bite it had, the pace had died down, yet the captain believed 60 overs was time enough for his quadruple strike force to get the job done against an admittedly brittle English batting line-up. Kohli had been neither optimistic nor wildly hopeful; as it turned out, it took Messers Bumrah, Shami, Ishant and the effervescent Siraj only 51.5 overs to get the job done. England’s capitulation was abject, but not unforced. India had created history by becoming only the second team, after New Zealand, to win a Test after declaring post lunch on the final day.
India’s pace riches don’t begin and end with these four worthies. Thakur is expected to be fit for the third Test beginning in Leeds on August 25, while the experienced Umesh Yadav is also warming the bench. More promise lies in the shape of Prasidh Krishna, Navdeep Saini and their ilk, while Bhuvneshwar Kumar is still in the picture, however much on the periphery. There is a plethora of quality white-ball exponents too, not least Deepak Chahar and Chetan Sakariya. It’s a good time to be an Indian fast bowler.
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It isn’t all about only pace, though. True, almost everyone in this current Test squad can clock 140 kmph consistently and send batsmen hopping, but it is the skill level that is astonishing. There is such a strong grounding in the basics that these men give themselves the best chance of replicating their successes as opposed to being one-innings wonders. Just looking at the steadiness of the perfectly positioned seam as the ball leaves Shami’s right hand is the cricketing equivalent of gazing at a beautiful piece of art. Indian wrists, often eulogised in batsmen from the peerless GR Viswanath to Mohammad Azharuddin and VVS Laxman, are now becoming the pacers’ calling card too, propelling the ball with perfection away from or into the batsmen by bowlers in total command of their craft, and as aware of it as their opponents.
One of the biggest compliments to India’s pace arsenal is the dilemma faced by countries that host Kohli’s men. What in the past was a no-brainer is now triggering worry-lines on the foreheads of decision-makers in Australia, South Africa, England and New Zealand alike. If you lay out a fast, bouncy surface, retribution will be swift. If there is a grassy strip designed to facilitate lateral movement, you will get back as good as you give. A bouncer will be answered with two, a verbal assault with three.
The final stages of the Lord’s Test best microcosmed where India are at as a Test entity. Having worked their way through the top and middle, the visitors ran into a tartar in Jos Buttler and Ollie Robinson. As one ball gave way to another and as one over segued into the next, the desperation was mounting. But only off the park.
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On the field, there were only calm visages and clinical minds. Secure in the skills at their disposal and banking on their ability to produce wicket-taking deliveries, the pacers were remarkably unflustered. The pressure was immense, sustained, relentless. The questions were constant, probing, complicated. The result was panic, wickets, success. It was a passage of play that lifted the spirit of every Indian cricket lover. Kapil must have allowed himself a quiet smile in the national capital, Srinath must have followed suit in Mysuru. Oh, what they wouldn’t have given to have been a part of an attack of this nature!
Siraj is the new kid on the block, his metamorphosis from a starry-eyed young man in Australia at the top of the year to an equal hunter of scalps in a well-rounded line-up extraordinarily seamless. His energy is boundless, his enthusiasm infectious, his aggression well channeled. In time to come, he will become the leader of the attack, but that will take a while because the rest aren’t going anywhere. Bumrah himself is only three and a half years old in Test cricket and Shami is in his eighth year. Only Ishant really falls in the ‘veteran’ category, having first played Test cricket more than 14 summers back.
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Ishant 2.0 is almost unrecognisable from the lanky workhorse of, say, pre-2018. From ‘well bowled, bad luck’, he has graduated to a wonderfully consistent deliverer, and now sits alongside his former player-mentor Zaheer as India’s joint fifth highest Test wicket-taker with 311 sticks. In a way, his career has mirrored Zaheer’s – a passable first half, a glorious second — with the common thread a stint in county cricket. It’s easy to forget, because he has been around for so long, that he is only 32.
Is this India’s best-ever pace core? Without a shadow of doubt. It hasn’t come about by accident or a chance fortuitous aligning of the stars. Kohli identified pace as his preferred attacking option early in his captaincy stint, while in Bharat Arun, the bowlers have found the perfect Dronacharya to hone their crafts. Arun has often flown under the radar for that’s his wont, but when the history of India’s pace revolution is recounted, the national bowling coach will be remembered for being at the forefront as much as anyone else.
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