The emergence of fast bowling in India

India is not known as a country that produces fast bowlers. We had fast bowlers in the past with the likes of Kapil Dev, Chetan Sharma, Venkatesh Prasad, Javagal Srinath, Zaheer Khan, and others to name a few to serve the game. But, the kind of fast bowling lineup Indian cricket has right now, was not to be found some few years back.

In recent times, Indian cricket has seen an upward trend in the rise of quality fast bowling options. They are quick; bowling at a good speed, banging in the ball hard and troubling some good batsmen around the world known to play fast bowlers better. And it was evident from the start of South Africa series.

India boasted the likes of Bhuvi, Bumrah, Shami, Pandya, who bowled at a good speed of 135-140+ kmph and troubled the Proteas batsmen. Even, in the current series against England, the performance of the Indian fast bowlers has been top notch.

Ishant Sharma is leading the attack in the absence of Bhuvi and is also the leading wicket-taker for India in the series. Shami and Bumrah have played their part extremely well and are beautifully complemented by Hardik Pandya and R Ashwin.

The bench strength is also knocking on the door hard with Shardul Thakur, Mohammed Siraj, Khaleel Ahmed (included in Asia Cup 2018), Navdeep Saini, Rajneesh Gurbani, Shivam Mavi, Kamlesh Nagarkoti and few others. They have performed consistently and bowled at a good pace.

BCCI has been looking keenly at the development of this pace battery in the country from the Under-19 level with the help of former players like Venkatesh Prasad, Laskmipathy Balaji, Zaheer Khan and others. The interaction with the coaches and the diet and training programmes are helping in their further development, which was missing during the early days of Indian cricket.

IPL has played a pivotal role in the development of fast bowling among the youth. They can interact with other fast bowlers from around the world and get more insights into improving themselves. A sense of healthy competition can be felt among this new generation of fast bowlers to be more quick and accurate than other.

IPL 2018 witnessed some real fast bowling performances from the Indian domestic bowlers with Siraj, Mavi, Avesh Khan clicking 149 kmph for their respective franchises. This has certainly grabbed some eyeballs of not only the selectors but also the cricket fraternity around the world, who now see team India with a really good pace attack.