World Cup: India's limp-wristed bowling

A man with arms as strong as that of Hercules but no legs is still a handicap. India’s World Cup squad is somewhat like that. On one hand, there’s an arsenal of batsmen that can give sleepless nights to any opposition skipper. However, sadly enough, the co-hosts possess an equally inept bowling attack.

It is true that a big total gives bowlers enough cushion to play with, but as far as this bunch of bowlers is concerned, nothing less than 350 seems enough.

If lowly Bangladesh managed to ‘amass’ 283 in response to India’s 370 in the inaugural match of the World Cup a couple of weeks ago, Andrew Strauss & Co almost usurped the seemingly unsurpassable 338 in Bangalore on Sunday.

“We haven’t been bowling well. We are missing a bowling all-rounder on these wickets,” former India pacer Manoj Prabhakar says. “Nobody knows how to bowl in the powerplays, whether it is the first or the third. How much can we expect from Zaheer Khan? He needs support from the other end too,” he laments.

Madan Lal, who was part of the 1983 World Cup-winning team, believes our medium-pacers need to pick up wickets in the first 15 overs. “Once the pacers do the early damage, our spinners can take over,” Lal says. He reckons the team management took a hasty decision by dropping Sreesanth after his poor show in Dhaka. “I don’t know why Sreesanth was left out. Yes, he bowled badly in one match, but he is the same bowler who has won India Test matches. How can you drop him after just one failure?” he enquires.

Venkatapathy Raju, a former India left-arm spinner as well as national selector, believes India can afford to experiment against Ireland and Netherlands, their next two opponents. “Why don’t they try a five-bowler combination? You don’t have a bowling all-rounder like (Shane) Watson, (Jacques) Kallis or even (Angelo) Mathews. And four specialist bowlers have proved they can’t do the job. So picking five bowlers is the only option,” he says.

Both Raju and Prabhakar feel Ravichandran Ashwin needs a look-in. “Piyush Chawla hasn’t played international cricket in a while. I reckon he was exposed on Sunday,” Raju says. “Ashwin has quite a few variations,” Prabhakar pitches in, before adding,

“He can bowl well during the batting powerplay and we have seen him do well during crunch situations. Chawla was a letdown but you can’t expect a leg-spinner to do wonders on batting tracks. The wicket has to be a turner to assist a leggie.”

So, who do you drop if we play five bowlers (three pacers and two spinners)? “Well, it has to be a toss-up between Yusuf Pathan and Virat Kohli. You can’t afford to drop any of the others (Tendulkar, Sehwag, Gambhir, Yuvraj and Dhoni),” Raju says.

He adds, “Now is the time to experiment. Play five bowlers and see how it works. It’s simply unfair to expect your batsmen to post 350-plus on the board match after match. What happens if the batting collapses one day? Will the bowlers rise to the occasion instead?” Raju wonders.

Prabhakar feels our medium-pacers are scared to bowl slower bouncers, yorkers and other surprise deliveries. “Our bowling attack is not complete. If this continues, then I doubt if we can defend smaller totals. The other option is to bowl first, expose our attack and then expect our mighty batters to chase down the target,” he says.

Hat-trick hero Chetan Sharma feels the bowling needs backing from the fielders. “Sreesanth is not bowling at his best, Ashish Nehra is nursing an injury and Chawla is so inexperienced. It puts a lot of pressure on Zaheer, Munaf and Harbhajan. Their fielding needs to improve as well. After all, they have some great fielders in Yuvraj Singh, Virat Kohli and Suresh Raina. I think they just need to motivate themselves,” he says.

Raju also wonders what Ashish Nehra is doing in the squad. “I wonder why they are persisting with him. If he’s injured, he should be sent home. I am not aware of the ICC rules. Can the selectors name a replacement?” he wonders. Yes, they very well can. But this is India and we are like that only. Sorry Ishant Sharma, you’ll have to wait till 2015.

Raju, though, ends on an optimistic note. “I have a gut feeling these guys will do the job. Maybe they just had two bad days. Sunday’s poor showing could spur them on. Wait and watch.”