New Delhi: India’s Nitish Kumar Reddy, Harshita Rana, Riyan Parag, Ravi Bishnoi, Sanju Samson and others during a practice session ahead of the second T20 International cricket match between India and Bangladesh at the Arun Jaitley Stadium, in New Delhi, Tuesday, Oct. 8, 2024. (PTI Photo/Ravi Choudhary)
India’s bowling nets at the stadium was packed in Delhi. Just as it was in Gwalior. Banter was in the air. Tilak Varma and Rinku Singh were jesting about who has the most international wickets – Rinku has three, Tilak has two but he didn’t let the opportunity slip by to remind his team-mate that he has taken out Nicholas Pooran in the IPL. Rinku’s comeback was to point out how he has even bowled in Powerplays for Meerut Maverick, picking up seven wickets. Both bowled in tandem to Harshit Rana at nets.
Around them, more batsmen were teeming to bowl. Riyan Parag warmed up with the ball in his hands, before padding up. Opener Abhishek Sharma took just a five-minute breather after his extensive batting session before getting back to bowl at Jitesh Sharma. The head coach Gautam Gambhir parked himself at close range to watch.
India had ten bowling options in the first T20I match against Bangladesh in Gwalior. Barring wicketkeeper Sanju Samson, everyone in India’s playing XI was able to roll their arms. This is not something India has enjoyed in the last decade in the white-ball format.
New Delhi: India’s Sanju Samson during a practice session ahead of the second T20 International cricket match between India and Bangladesh at the Arun Jaitley Stadium, in New Delhi, Tuesday, Oct. 8, 2024. (PTI Photo/Ravi Choudhary)
A glance at some numbers in the ODIs from the past will help us dig deeper. Sachin Tendulkar, who bowled inswingers, outswingers, leg-breaks, and off-breaks has 154 ODI wickets. Sourav Ganguly with his military medium stuff has 100 scalps while Yuvraj Singh, whose bowling played a huge part in India winning the 2011 World Cup, retired with 111 victims. Virender Sehwag with 96 wickets and Suresh Raina with 36 wickets also did their part under MS Dhoni. Kedar Jadhav picked up 27 wickets. These were all specialist batters in the top seven. Under MS Dhoni’s captaincy, even Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma used to chip in with a few overs.
Thereafter, a trend came where India’s top-order batters stopped bowling. Former India fielding coach R Sridhar in his book ‘Coaching Beyond: My Days With The Indian Cricket Team’, has blamed the decline on having throwdown specialists.
“One of the main reasons for that is our coaching system. With the Indian team now, as it has been for a little while, we have three dedicated throwdown specialists and generally, we get four nets. Two nets are used for full-fledged bowling; in the other two nets, there is always someone who wants extra batting. Most of the batters finish their 20–25 minutes of batting, after which there are between three and five men waiting with weapons in their hands – I am referring, of course, to the sidearm or the slinger. Across formats, all our batters only bat, they don’t bowl at all,” Sridhar wrote in his book.
New regime, crowded nets
But under Gambhir, things have changed. In Gambhir’s first series in Sri Lanka, India used at least six bowling options and in the last game used seven, with the scarcely used Suryakumar and Rinku bowling at the death. This plan spilled onto the ODIs as well.
India’s T20I captain Suryakumar Yadav, who was called for suspect action some years back during a Mumbai Indians match, never bowled till Gautam Gambhir became the coach. In the third match of the Sri Lanka series at Pallekele, he had surprised everyone by giving the 19th over to Rinku, who picked two wickets and then the last to himself, grabbing two scalps.
The variety
It is not just about extra bowling options, Surya is probably the first Indian captain in any format, who has the luxury of having so many bowling options. In Arshdeep Singh, he has a left-arm seamer. In Mayank Yadav, a tearaway pace bowler. Another pacer Harshit Rana is waiting in the wings.
In the spin department, there is a mystery spinner in Varun Chakravarthy, an off-spinner in Washington Sundar and a leg-spinner in Ravi Bishnoi. Parag and Tilak bowl off-spin, while Abhishek Sharma is a more than useful left-arm spinner.
Not to forget, Suryakumar Yadav also enjoys the service of two proper seam bowling all-rounders — Hardik Pandya and Nitish Kumar Reddy.
Gwalior: India’s Hardik Pandya bowls a delivery during the first T20 International cricket match between India and Bangladesh at Shrimant Madhavrao Scindia Cricket Stadium, in Gwalior, Sunday, Oct. 6, 2024. (PTI Photo/Arun Sharma)
Ahead of the first match in Gwalior, the captain had said that having extra bowling options is a “good headache.”
“It’s a good headache to have when you are on the field on whom to bowl. Every time you have an extra option, it’s a good thing,” he said.
Now with several multifaceted cricketers in their playing XI, and citing the reference of the Sri Lanka series where he bowled Rinku and himself in the last two overs, Surya said he would not want such a situation to arise again. “Aisi naubat na aa ye toh acha hai (I hope that situation will not come again).”
“I enjoyed it and we are 2-0 leading in the series. So we thought let’s do something different. We had overs left of the fast bowlers but I wanted to do something different because the wicket was turning and I just took a chance,” he explained. If such a naubat arises again, he has more men now, all ready to have a crack. It’s 2024, but feels like 2011 again.
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Pratyush Raj is a sports journalist with The Indian Express Group and specializes in breaking news stories and conducting in-depth investigative reports for the paper. His passion extends to crafting engaging content for the newspaper’s website. Pratyush takes a keen interest in writing on cricket and hockey. He started his career with the financial daily Business Standard but soon followed his true calling as Times of India’s sports reporter for Punjab in Chandigarh, a job that required extensive travel to states such as Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu & Kashmir. He has also contributed to the sports coverage of India Today Group. Pratyush’s love for sports blossomed during his upbringing in flood-prone Saharsa, a district in North Bihar, where ‘Cricket Samrat’ was his cherished companion. … Read More
First uploaded on: 08-10-2024 at 19:40 IST
