We are living in a golden age of Indian fast bowling. Pitches, conditions, match situation – nothing seems to matter. India’s bowling attack is ruthlessly targeting the opposition, and summoning magic deliveries at will.
What better time to talk about our favorite quick bowling performances in Indian conditions – from Malcolm Marshall’s devastating spell in Kanpur to Javagal Srinath’s 13-wicket-haul in a losing cause to Jason Gillespie’s lionhearted effort in Chennai to Dale Steyn’s spell-of-a-lifetime in Nagpur.
And let’s not forget the splendid feats of swing bowling from the likes of Roger Binny, L Balaji and Tim Southee – sussing up Indian conditions and knocking out batsmen on largely benign surfaces.
Participants:
K Balakumar (@kbalakumar)
Vijay Arumugam (@vijayarumugam)
Mahesh Sethuraman (@cornerd)
Siddhartha Vaidyanathan (@sidvee)
Related:
When Marshall Law was declared in Kanpur – Clayton Murzello in Mid-Day
India v West Indies series review by Tony Cozier – YouTube video
Dale Steyn spell at Nagpur 2010 – video from BCCI website
Javagal Srinath 8-86 spell v Pakistan in 1999 – Youtube video
West Indies rattle India after Kapil Dev’s historic spell – Arunabha Sengupta in Cricketcountry.com
India v Australia, Chennai Test, 2001 – Youtube video
Umesh’s spell of pace and fire – Karthik Krishnaswamy in ESPNcricinfo.com
How Southee outsmarted India – Aakash Chopra in ESPNcricinfo
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Lead image from here.
Thanks to the lockdown, I am catching up on the pods I’ve missed.
There are some usual suspects, some of which I have only heard and read but never seen (Marshall, Kapil, etc) but Binny’s spell is an interesting choice that also raises a pertinent “What if” question 🙂
That Mohali story is nostalgic; [I was an emotional fool in my younger days (and thank God there’s no Internet during those days; I’d have spent all my time abusing strangers over something or the other). So I used to think India should (and must) win all the matches regardless of the pitch, opposition, form, condition, and so on. ] So when at stumps 4th day, India were 1 (or 2) down for some 30-40 and I thought wow only 300 more to get. By the time I came back from school, the match was over. I didn’t know what happened 😀
Similar things happened at Eden Gardens, 96 vs SA; I remember the newspaper headlines on the 5th day morning “only 8 wickets to go” or something similar. I wondered why they have written like this. I got my answer by the afternoon. :-/
The Jason Gillespie entry was the most interesting of the lot. There are things that numbers can’t always tell. Rest everything about that spell is already mentioned in the pod 🙂
If I’ve to pick one performance (of foreign fast bowlers), I’ll pick Brad Williams and Nathan Bracken in that triangular in 03-04. They created havoc in the day games, made full use of the early morning moisture. Luckily they had South Africa games as India played only DNs (for prime time viewing). Bracken especially benefited from those performances as he was called for the home Test series that summer. Of course he bowled with the ‘right’ hand 😀
P.S: The premise of this pod is really interesting; I can suggest to compile a similar one involving foreign spinners doing well in India 🙂