Former India bowler Karsan Ghavri, who was part of a national team along with Bhagwat Chandrasekhar, Erapalli Prasanna, Bishan Singh Bedi, and S Venkataraghavan, has praised the countries current fast-bowling unit.
Specially praising Jasprit Bumrah, the former fast bowler admitted the battery of pacers India possesses is something that he had never imagined.
“India has the best fast bowling attack in the world, which is extraordinary,” Ghavri was quoted as saying by Hindustan Times.
“Mohammed Shami, Ishant Sharma, Jasprit Bumrah, Bhuvneshwar Kumar... you cannot go wrong with these guys. They’ve been performing extremely well. To win a Test match, you need to take 20 wickets and due to these bowlers, India have been able to do so regularly and effectively.”
Bumrah had earlier this year, won the Polly Umrigar Award, for being at the forefront of India’s fast bowling contingent’s rise. The bowler had played a pivotal role in all three formats and Ghavri remembered spotting a young Bumrah years ago, and believes his rise is almost second to none.
“In the beginning, when he started playing Ranji Trophy for Gujarat. No one thought he would scale the peak he has because he had this unconventional action like Malinga,” he says.
“He’s an extremely different bowler; he is no Dennis Lille or a Michael Holding. He’s worked extremely hard to reach where he has because with that sort of action, for Bumrah to maintain the kind of accuracy he has, is commendable. I never thought a fast bowler could have the kind of variety Bumrah has.”
“Initially, people thought he could only bowl inswingers, but today he can make the ball go away. Besides, he can bowl the best yorkers. He executes it nine out of ten times, which is something I thought I’d never see from an Indian bowler. He’s got a threatening bouncer and at the same time, an excellent slower bouncer. He’s the perfect all-round fast-bowling package.”
With the fate of the T20 World Cup not yet known, Ghavri spoke about how the people of India are so used to winning trophies that a semi-final or a final berth just doesn't work with them anymore.
India had won the Champions Trophy in 2013 and then went on to lose the final of 2014 WT20 and semi-final of 2016 WT20. The 'Men in Blue' also lost in the semi-finals of the 2015 World Cup and 2019 World Cup respectively. They were also defeated by Pakistan in the Champions Trophy 2017 final.
"But the Indian team is reaching the knockouts, right? See, over the years, right since 1983, we have entered so many finals, so many trophies we have won," Ghavri said.
"I think it's the habit of winning trophies which we have developed over the years, because of which we are not content as long as we do not have a trophy in hand - even if that means we tend to overlook the fact that the Indian team has done so well to reach the final four or final two.
"Playing all nine teams and topping the group in a World Cup is no mean feat," he added.
