Pathetic bowling
I don’t know if the score following crowd noticed this, but India’s runs on the board, against Bermuda, may be actually overshadowing an acute problem that it has: its bowling attack. It’s poor, really poor. It is nowhere world cup class. It’s telling that if Bermuda’s batsmen were able to haul sixes, then it is really bad and it is not going to work against the more capable teams.
Zaheer Khan’s bowling is really unfocused. This kid loses concentration far too quickly. I can see the number of wides he consistently bowls. Is he getting enough net practice? And where’s that damn swing? Ditto with Agarkar. Ditto with Munaf Patel, no pace and no mix. Don’t tell me that plain vanilla bowling is going to get wickets.
Who else? Harbhajan Singh? His bowling is beginning to look like a joke. Nothing is spinning, except our heads, watching his ball crossing the fence, ever so often.
Kumble had his days, but the magic is gone. Sehwag, Tendulkar, Yuvraj — if these guys are taking wickets, it is either by fluke, by luck or by a bit of both. Who’s left (with the exception of Irfan Pathan)? What were the selectors thinking when they sent this team? Are there no former bowlers for selection?
Stroke makers have always torn Indian attack apart. If one were to look at the record of the Indians in the past many years, we have consistently lost against sides with good stroke makers. It has been our Achilles heel for quite some time. We used to win matches because of our batting (more precisely because of good opening partnerships between Ganguly and Tendulkar and more recently Tendulkar and Sehwag). Opening partnerships haven’t been good off late.
Mar 20, 07 at 16:36