The Indian dilemma-an expensive tear way fast bowler or a accurate medium pace surgeon ?

Ms Dhoni

"This win is good, but we need to make a decision if we want quick bowlers or if we want good bowlers even if they are not quick. We have been backing too many quick bowlers who haven't been bowling well," 

You will laugh at ms Dhoni.

 That the team reached the semi-finals of the world cup was mainly due to the bowlers picking up 77 wickets from a maximum of 80 wickets.

Dhoni however was referring to Umesh Yadav’s performance in particular.

After Umesh Yadav’s performance in the match against Bangaldesh, Dhoni does have a point.

After his success in the world cup he was richly praised for having learnt and improved. However after recent performance it seems he is not able to adapt.

And he is just an example. Due to the fact that India played most of their matches abroad in 2014 and a wonderful world cup in terms of bowling performance their overall figures are good.

However the underlying fact is in the past 18 months no bowler apart from Mohammed Shami has been able to combine brisk speed with accuracy. Bhuvneshwar Kumar has accuracy but isn’t threatening after the new ball though he is improving. Aaron has speed but no accuracy.

fast and effective

 Let us take six Indian pacers who are more or less in the frame now and see their speed.

Umesh Yadav and Varun Aaron are ultra fast.

Ishant Sharma and Mohammed Shami are fast

Mohit Sharma and Dhawal Kulakarni are brisk

Though Bhuvneshwar Kumar has increased his speed he is clearly the slowest of the lot.

Umesh Yadav had a wonderful world cup and an agreeable IPL. He was the leading wicket taker in the world cup with 18 wickets.

However, in the series against Bangladesh he has gone for over 7.58 runs per over. That is clearly too expensive for a strike bowler.

Varun Aaron has played 5 ODIs and he was too expensive going at above 7 runs per over. It was telling that little known Harshal Patel pipped him to be Royal Challengers Bangalore’s Indian bowler. This after he was touted to lead the attack for his IPL franchise.

Ishant Sharma had a poor IPL after returning from injury.

Shami is injured but has been a vital part of the Indian line up.

That vibe about Mohit Sharma is no longer present. After being the dark horse on the World Cup, he has fared badly in the IPL and the current tour.

It is too early to say anything about Dhawal Kulkarni. Bhuvneshwar Kumar has improved by leaps and bounds and has always been a quiet achiever.

MS Dhoni is always blamed with managing his bowling resources badly. There may be some truth in it. However, we see that the bowlers are really inconsistent and are not able to string more than two good games on trot.

As Mcgrath said, raw pace in India is an unnatural phenomenon. Indians are used to seeing other countries have 140 plus bowlers. Ours was a line and length tradition. The conditions also don’t help or suit a fast bowler to become one in India.

So naturally all of us felt excited when we could say that we have two or three 145kmph bowlers in our country who could hit the deck, bounce out Australians and keep the batsmen honest.. Raw pace is exciting but without control it means nothing.

Varun Aaron’s first class record wouldn’t have got him into any team. It was his deemed potential and his unnatural speed that gave him that opportunity

Experts said to give them time to grow and develop.

So they were given. But the conclusion is unclear.

I come back to what ms Dhoni said. India needs to choose

Fast or medium. Tear away or surgeons.

However there are a few problems. In the subcontinent the conditions are such that bowlers focus more on line, length and swing than pace. So a dhawal kularni or a Bhuvneshwar Kumar will be more handy here. In England, South Africa and Australia one needs that extra pace to trouble the batsmen. Umesh yadav and Shami’s success in the world cup was testimony to that.

So one option maybe to create a crop of bowlers for oversees and for subcontinent. (This is never going to happen.)

 The other is continue to invest in the faster bowlers and set up an ideal combination of the faster and medium fast bowlers.

One can accept if a fast bowler leaks a few runs but picks wickets but the two ultra fast bowlers have not been able to do that.

 Umesh Yadav has to be given more chances and time to develop. A wonderful World Cup performance should not be undermined.

15-20 years back a medium fast pace bowler would be able to contribute well if he was smart and canny enough.

Nowadays it is almost imperative to have that X-factor present in terms of speed as the batsmen have become much adept, skilled and armed with heavier bats. Not to mention the current ODI rules(which have changed) and the pitch which is increasingly becoming batsmen-friendly.

This inconsistency was becoming the case in the last few years. The world cup camouflaged it. However Dhoni’s words may have been said in frustration but it does put Indian cricket in dilemma they had postponed.

The team has reached crossroads as the combination of bowling attack reflects the level of intent and the plan of the team.

This is something that carefully needs to be thought of and will be known when the Sri Lankan tour starts.