The bitter medicine
Ani Dasgupta - 20 Aug 2002

For some time now, the bite in the Indian bowling attack, or lack thereof, has been the stuff nightmares are made of, as far as Indian cricket fans are concerned. Surprisingly, however, we just do not have the stomach to accept the only logical remedy to the situation: India playing five frontline bowlers in every match - be it a Test match or an ODI.

Let's face it - we like big-scoring matches, and we like it even more when exciting young players batting low down the order can pull off stunning, hair-raising victories in dramatic 'David and Goliath' like affairs. But every Indian fan, in his heart of hearts, knows that this just cannot happen match after match. More often than not, India, even with its plentiful batting talents, will not be able to get three hundred plus runs against an Australian, South African or Pakistani attack.

Yet, given the current crop of bowlers and the 7+4 policy, if India is to win, this has to happen consistently. It is plain for all to see that our four-pronged attack is much like a blunt fork for opposition teams to gobble runs with. We continue to play four bowlers every match, and the attack continues to get clobbered, and then the batsmen are left with the unenvious task of cleaning up the garbage.

Now, if all our four bowlers bowled with a modicum of consistency and intelligence, it wouldn’t be so bad (remember ’83 world cup?). The problem is that one can be sure that at least two of the four specialist bowlers will invariably bowl erratically and without imagination.

Mercurially, one day Anil Kumble will decide to bowl only straight balls, or Ajit Agarkar will decide that it is a perfect day for bowl at half pace, or Zaheer Khan will decide to run down the pitch just to check if the umpire is noticing, or Harbhajan Singh will bowl only a middle and leg line to see exactly how many runs can be scored off him backward of square, or Ashish Nehra - oh well, of him the less said the better. And everyone will bowl no balls whether he is in good form or not. Talk about back to basics for the pros!

Now, of course, all Indian batsmen can bowl too, but then just because I know how to play about five and a half chords on my guitar, I cannot exactly call myself a musician. Playing five bowlers gives the skipper some genuine options when someone in the bowling department is bowling rank bad balls, as opposed to letting the opposition batsmen salivate at the prospect of a Sehwag or Yuvraj Singh coming on to bowl.

The situation regarding the batting and bowling departments is not unlike that of having to obtain passing scores in each of several papers to obtain a degree. Scoring brilliantly in one paper does not give you the allowance to flunk in another. And precisely because the batsmen are doing well, it is not unsafe in playing an extra bowler.

This, of course, brings up the unpleasant question of which batsman is to be dropped from the team. Looking towards the ICC and the World cups, I would drop Dinesh Mongia from the ODI team , and play Agarkar, Harbhajan, Kumble, Zaheer and Javagal Srinath as bowlers (the other batsmen retain their places). You might argue that there is no justice in the world when a batsman gets dropped because bowlers do poorly. But then, cricket is a team sport and presumably, we care more about winning than losing amidst a spectacular run-fest.

The views expressed above are solely those of the guest contributor and are carried as written, with only minor editing for grammar, to preserve the original voice. These contributed columns are solely personal opinion pieces and reflect only the feelings of the guest contributor. Their being published on CricInfo.com does not amount to an endorsement by CricInfo's editorial staff of the opinions expressed.

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