Under the sun

Friday, July 20, 2007

Indian Bowling

  • Kuil Kumble cannot bowl to left-handers. Not even to save his life.
  • The whole point of a googly is to fox the batsman into playing for leg spin, while the ball spins in the other direction. Hence, the batsman should not pick it up (atleast till the point of delivery). Holding the ball with the thumb and index finger (like picking up the ball from a drainage gutter) is like announcing to the batsman "Here comes a googly!". It's a different matter that there *are* some batsmen who fail to read even a Kumble googly
  • All that said, sadly, Kumble is India's only strike bowler at present. Or atleast the most consistent.
  • Winning test matches is essentially about bowlers bowling out the opposition twice. Yes, the batsmen must give them enough runs to do that but the common practice of blaming certain batsmen for failing to "win tests for India" is rubbish. Obviously, the batsmen are to be blamed for failing to chase a target like 120 but the general tendency is to hold certain batsmen responsible.
  • How can someone like B.K Venkatesh Prasad be the bowling coach?
  • What the fuck happened to Lakshmipathy Balaji? Is he not better than atleast Ranadeb Bose and Ishant Sharma? Hasn't he recovered from his injury?

posted by Bala (Karthik) at 9:09 AM

10 Comments:

  • Your comment on Kumble's googly reminds me of Mushtaq Ahmed...At one point in his career, he was bowling more Googlies tahn normal leg spinners...Almost as if Googly was his stock ball and the normal leggie his strike one...
    Pesama Kumble right arm over googly announce pannitu ball poda armabikalam. Keeperkavadhu entha pakkam ponumnna theriyum :)

    By Blogger mutRupuLLi, at Fri Jul 20, 11:58:00 AM  

  • Fast bowlers generally have short shelf life and Indian fast bowlers seem to be perishable goods if one goes by what happened to Balaji and Pathan. The problem lies in how they trained when they were young. In Australia, you have to be a good runner and athlete first and then a pace bowler. As a result they have good frame which is sturdy and then pick up skills based on that. Here our boys run in maidhanam without shoes and dont have toned bodies form a young age. Suddenly asking a vathal thothal paiyyan of 16+ playing tennis ball cricket to take a cricket ball and start bowling is ridiculous. BCCI has been doing only this. Hope that ICL will change these things. As a thamizh pazha mozhi goes" Suvarai vechu dhaan sithiram varaya mudiyum". Adhu varaikkum Kumble va vechu dhaan oppetha mudiyum. All Said and done Kumble is a good bowler and should not be so easily and hastily insulted and sullied in nakkal and silly words IMO.

    By Blogger V.P.Jaiganesh, at Fri Jul 20, 01:41:00 PM  

  • Sridhar,
    LOL!
    Which in turns reminds me of B.K Venkatesh Prasad. His stock ball was the "slower" ball.

    Jaiganesh,
    @comment on our fast bowlers and BCCI - Very true :(

    "All Said and done Kumble is a good bowler and should not be so easily and hastily insulted and sullied in nakkal and silly words IMO."
    - Ahaa. That wasn't my intention, seriously. Of course he's a very good bowler (like i said, India's only strike bowler) and my comments were restricted to his googly and bowling to lefties.

    Etymology of "Kuil" - This was coined by my friend one day when he suddenly came up with this prefix. reason ellam illa, solla nalla irundhuchu. avalavu dhaan :)

    innoru matter inga naan solla viruppa padren. Kumble is nowhere in the league of Warne or Murali and we tend to hype him as a better bowler than what i think he is. For someone who has served the team for so long and has taken so many wickets, his bowling to lefties is shocking. Records pathi idea illa (i may make it sound worse than what the figures suggest) but he should have done much better. even the googly was something he developed midway or late in his career.

    By Blogger Bala (Karthik), at Fri Jul 20, 02:16:00 PM  

  • venkatesh prasad is a fast leg-spinner(recollect his famous leg spinners against gary kirsten in the south african tour)

    kuyil kumble is a slow fast bowler

    By Blogger vigneshwaran shanmugam, at Fri Jul 20, 08:32:00 PM  

  • haha @ vicky.....

    By Blogger feddy, at Sat Jul 21, 05:15:00 AM  

  • Re. Kumble, haven't observed well enough to notice a market deficiency against lefties.

    But I remember him troubling the Aussies when we went there in 03-04 as well as when they came here the next year (Langer, Hayden,Gilchrist,Katich)

    //What the fuck happened to Lakshmipathy Balaji?// Heard that he rubbed the TN cricket-politicians the wrong way.
    He even missed several matches in the last Ranji season.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at Sat Jul 21, 01:23:00 PM  

  • How can someone like B.K Venkatesh Prasad be the bowling coach? Actually no one has been able to establish a clear connection between a successful playing career and a successful coaching career. The current Aussie coach Buchanan is a very good example. Likewise, the former England captain Mike Brearly was extremely successful(by English standards :) as a captain, but was not noted for any great personal records. It's a bit like Sundar.C being director - be more of a facilitator ;-). Malcolm Gladwell's last best seller 'Blink' offered some startling insights into this topic of successful people - it turns out a lot of successful people, not just successful sportsmen, may not be aware of the reasons for their success. He gives in the book the example of Jack Nicklaus or some such famous golfer - the advice dished out by this golf player was actually not consistent with what he himself followed on the golf course. Gladwell implies that the player himself may not have been aware of the reasons for his success. Anyway this is a broad topic. I must get back to my practice runs - prepare the Ears for Diwali release. Listening to Aap Ka Suroor - Himmesh + Isai = Himmsai ;-)

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at Sun Jul 22, 11:46:00 PM  

  • Vikki,
    :))

    msp,
    Don't know the stats but naan paathadha vechu he has always struggled against lefties. Even if he has succeeded, it must have been on the dust bowls in India.
    He should have done much better, IMO.

    @the Balaji info:
    Shocked! That's the last thing he needs :(

    bnb,
    Yes, there are a lot of examples to show that good coaches need not have been good players. Still, B.K Venkatesh Prasad - toooo much nu thonudhu.
    I mean players-ke sirippu varadhu? :)

    Listening to Aap Ka Suroor - Himmesh + Isai = Himmsai ;-)
    LOL :) nalla irukku, mind la vechikkaren apparam use pannikkaren

    By Blogger Bala (Karthik), at Mon Jul 23, 04:01:00 PM  

  • ennaaadhu!
    kumble googly podarara?
    eppo irundhu avar baal turn aaga arambichudu? indha matter avarukee theriyama nadandhirkanum!!

    i definitely agree tha he is india's best - slow medium pace bowler, that is.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at Thu Jul 26, 02:01:00 AM  

  • Hmm.. Call him what you want - leg-spinner, slow medium pace bowler, whatever.. as long as he gets the wickets, we should be happy.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at Sun Jul 29, 02:55:00 PM  

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