 After Kumble, what?
 A cricket enthusiast recently asked me why India was not producing fast bowlers like her neighbour Pakistan. My flippant reply was that with the recent ICC ruling on suspect bowling actions and the degrees of flexion allowed under it, the situation could perhaps be soon be repaired. The more serious reply would be that Indians may not possess the physical and mental attributes needed by genuine fast bowlers, qualities in which Pakistan’s pacemen seem to abound. There is also a ray of hope in some of the younger crop of fast bowlers like V R V Singh, who are faster and bouncier than the bowlers at present representing India.
 Be that as it may, the real problem India faces is that there is a shortage of match-winning bowlers, fast or slow. Ajit Agarkar is inconsistent and Irfan Khan is still on a learning curve. Kumble, the game fighter that he is, is not getting any younger, and Harbhajan Singh seems to be struggling to strike his best rhythm of a few seasons ago. Kartik Murali looks impressive with his easy action and nice loop, but the years in the wilderness have apparently robbed him of his bite. The question looming large is: after
Kumble, what?
If you conducted a nationwide hunt for bowlers, you would probably discover that there are no off spinners of the potential of say, Prasanna or Venkataraghavan, when they were 19 or 20. The stock of left-arm spinners is likewise quite depleted, with nobody destructive in the manner of a Daniel Vettori in sight. In young Piyush Chawla, there is a precocious leg spinning talent that needs to be nurtured and given the right breaks at the right time. Otherwise, the bowling cupboard is thin relative to the batting riches of the country.
 The obvious answer to this riddle of why one department of our cricket is lagging so far behind another is the simple one that bowling is hard work, much harder than most people can imagine. Fast bowling is a backbreaking exercise, involving years of strenuous hard work and a rather nasty streak of belligerence - on the field, of course. Spin bowling is a craft that needs tons of effort and megatons of patience. It is hardly surprising then that India’s young cricketers prefer the pleasure of pulverising some poor soul’s bowling with the super bats they now have access to rather than do all the hard yards needed to become decent bowlers on the world stage.
V Ramnarayan
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