Unseen Story of Indian Test Pacers

Indian fast bowling line up today is among one of the most discussed topic in the world of cricket. Be it for their pace, consistency, match winning spells or six hitting abilities (read Umesh Yadav and Mohammad Shami). And being an Indian cricket fan who since his childhood has only heard about the heroics of either an Indian Batsman or a Spinner, this new avatar of Indian Cricket only adds to the excitement to follow it even more. Gone are the days when talking about Indian Pacers we have to think hard and still come up with very few names like Kapil Dev, Venkatesh Prasad, Javagal Sreenath or Zaheer Khan. It is sad that in past 3 decades (1980–2010), India has produced only a handful of class fast bowlers, and even among them except for Kapil Dev and Zaheer Khan most of them has always played a role of a supporting bowler to our spinners.

The period 1990–2010, was all about two all-time greatest spinners India has produced Anil Kumble and Harbhajan Singh, who together managed to take 962 wickets, which is 40% of the total wickets taken by a full time Indian bowler in that period. Which just tells how much Indian team was relying on these two spinners.

Comparing the 90s or early 2000s Indian team with today’s team, we certainly have come a long way ahead. No more are we relying on mammoth tons of a batsman or googly or dusra of a spinner to win the match. Yes, even our pacers are contributing equally now, and even at times outperforming the previous two. So what is the reason behind this drastic transformation of Indian Cricket? Some believe the mind set or freedom Virat Kohli has given to his men. Some credits it to the pitches curated for domestic season/ home games, while some even credit the fitness the team is following. While all of these reasons are certainly a big factor contributing to Fast Bowler’s success, but is there anything else we are missing out on? Is it happening only in this decade, or is there a process started long back, but reaping its result now.

In quest to answer these questions, I took a look at the performance of Indian bowlers over the past 4 decades (1980–2019), and to my surprise found some amazing results which I will be summarising below:

Decade 1 (1980–1989)

This is one of the most competitive decade of Pacers v/s Spinners, where both kind of bowlers took almost same number of wickets — 486 (Spinners), 471 (Pacers) and even their numbers were also same (8 bowlers of each kind). With pick of the bowler being Kapil Dev, who took most number of wickets in that decade (272). Also, this is the only instance in these 4 decades where a pacer has taken more wickets than a spinner. Below is a brief glimpse of stats for this decade:

Wickets by Spinner: 486

Wickets by Pacer: 471

Matches in India & Sri Lanka : 45

Other Venues: 36

Leading Wicket Taker: Kapil Dev (272 wickets)

With such significant figures of pacers in this era as well, the question that pops in my mind is why don’t we remember or mention the pace attack of this decade? And the reason is quite clear, it was only a one man show Kapil Dev. Other than him the combined wicket count of other pacers was only 199 and that’s why other than Kapil Dev we barely remember the name of others.

Decade 2 (1990–1999)

This was a more spin dominant decade in Indian Cricket, where the spinners took as many as 43 more wickets than pacers, again with equal participation of both kind of bowlers(8). And even this was the only decade where number of matches played in India, Sri Lanka v/s other venues was almost the same, still spinners were out numbering pacers, shows how much we were relying on spinners. Below is the glimpse of stats:

Wickets by Spinner: 492

Wickets by Pacer: 449

Matches in India & Sri Lanka: 36

Other Venues: 33

Leading Wicket Taker: Anil Kumble (264 wickets)

Decade 3 (2000–2009)

This decade witnessed something new in the Indian Cricket. Even though, in this era as well, the number of wickets taken by Spinners were more than that of pacers (by a margin of 42 wickets), but what was new is that Indian team was trying and encouraging involvement of more pacers in the team. As many as 11 pacers played during this decade (which is the most in any of the 4 decades) as compared to only 6 spinners in which Harbhajan and Kumble were present for most part of time. The stats for the decade follows as:

Wickets by Spinner: 745

Wickets by Pacer: 707

Matches in India & Sri Lanka: 58

Other Venues: 45

Leading Wicket Taker: Anil Kumble (355 wickets)

Though Kumble was lead wicket taker for this decade as well, but Harbhajan was not far behind with as many as 322 wickets, and this duo was responsible for taking as many as 40% of the total wickets. Taking advantage of the consistency of these two spinners, what Ganguly did smartly was to try more and more pacers and thus we witnessed the great spells of Zaheer Khan, Irfan Pathan, S Sreesanth, Ishant Sharma and many others. Sreesanth’s fiery spell in Wanderers, Pathan’s hat trick in Karachi or Ishant’s brutal spell in Australia, all gave a hope that if provided with proper infrastructure and time, Indian pacers can also mark their name in the world of test cricket.

Decade 4 (2010–2019)

From Kohli’s master class, Sachin’s retirement, to Rohit Sharma’s rise this decade has found a special place to discuss India’s rise in Pace department as well. This decade for the first time in past 4 decades has seen pacers taking more wickets (21) than spinners, despite the fact that matches played in home ground and Sri Lanka are far more than played in other venues. Which proved that Indian Pacers were performing not only in the overseas conditions, but even at home. Though the first half of the decade saw dominance of R Ashwin and R Jadeja, but it was during the second half, especially after the South Africa series of 2018 that we witnessed some fiery Indian Pace attack. And it was not just the effort of one or two bowler(s). But it was a combined effort of as many as five pacers ( I Sharma, M Shami, U Yadav, B Kumar, J Bumrah), who are now proving to be a nightmare for any batting line up in the world. Below are the stats for this decade

Wickets by Spinner: 841

Wickets by Pacer: 862

Matches in India & Sri Lanka: 62

Other Venues: 45

Leading Wicket Taker: R Ashwin (362 wickets)

Just to emphasize on how well the stats has improved for pacers over the period, I have further divided this decade in 3 sections 2010–2015, 2016–2017, 2018–2019 (the reason to segregate 2016–17 and 2018–19 is because Indian has played good number of home games in 2016–17 and away games in 2018–19)

And as can be seen from the chart that the difference between wickets taken by spinners and pacers was gradually reducing from 2010–15, the year 2016–18 saw significant rise in wickets taken by Indian spinners and this was mainly because India played as many as 80% of matches in spin friendly conditions. But then came the overseas test, and the time to test if Indian pace battery, who the management is investing in from so long has made any difference or not. And the rest is history. The pacers outperform the spinners by a huge margin. And even continued to do so in home conditions as well.

My Analysis

Based on the above data of 4 decades, I have included certain factors which might help us understand the growth of Indian Pacers over the years and the reason behind it

Factor 1 — Wickets Taken/ Bowler

Here I have tried to calculate the average wicket taken by a spinner and a fast bowler in all these decades

And as seen from the above graph, the wicket taken per bowler by a spinner was same as that by a pacer during the 80s, but this was all because of one player Kapil Dev who compensated for all the pacers, but as soon as he stopped playing the gap started widening. Now to not repeat the mistake of depending on one bowler India started investing in more pacers because of which the gap further widened in 2000s, but this was just the beginning of a process. And today as a result of that India has not only narrowed the gap but in the last two years has even surpassed it, and the best part is today we are not just depended on one or two bowlers. We have 5 full time best fast bowlers to look for and many more in progress.

Factor 2: Percentage of wickets taken by an Indian Pacer as compared to their Spinner counterpart

This factor is used to compare the dependencies Indian team had over its two genre of bowlers

And as evident the decade 2 saw a downfall in the Indian Pace performance which over the years of perseverance has now outnumbered even the previous records

Factor 3: Top Contributors

Here I have just checked the top contributors for each era, to see how much effect a spinner/pacer has on the team

And as evident from the above charts that over the years Team India has not only improved their bowling stats, but are planning in a right direction by not only strengthening their bowlers, but also by diversifying the load so that at any point the team does not suffer because of missing out on just one or two key players.

Conclusion

Till date whenever I used to blame Indian pace attack my top reason used to be lack of pace friendly pitches, but I failed to realise that likes of Kapil Dev and Zaheer Khan also performed on the same pitches. So it was not only the lack in infrastructure, but also the lack in vision of management/leaders during late 1980s and for a big part of 1990s, that India could not create a quality pace attack. But it was under Ganguly’s captaincy that the team started working on a process. A process of including variety in pace bowling, a process of giving young pacers a chance to perform at the international stage. To give an idea of how much inclusion did Indian Pacers had during 2000–2019, as compared to 1980–1999. I calculated the number of overs bowled by pacers over the decades and came with the below result

And as again can be seen that, even though the Indian Pacers were not providing that significant results in the early 2000s, yet the captains kept faith in them and, made them bowl a lot more, which gave the fast bowlers much required confidence.

This was again followed by Dhoni’s backing up to his pacers even after their failures so that they don’t shy away from trying out something new in fear of getting dropped. And eventually we start seeing result of same when Indian Pacers started performing in overseas condition.

But now to reach that level of greatness, something special was required. Something that so far has not been stressed upon. And this is when the captaincy of Virat Kohli came into picture. He not only stressed on making pace friendly pitches, but also made sure that his bowlers give equal importance to their physical as well as mental health which will not only help them utilizer their skills to maximum, but will also help them being the greatest of all time.

So today when we applaud Virat Kohli for taking out the best from his pacers, we must not forget to keep in mind the efforts made in the past by other captains as well who were equally important in bringing out this change.

And by the time I conclude this article, the Indian Pacers have achieved another record of taking most number of wickets (19) in a test match in India, where spinners went wicketless.

I hope in years to come, our pacers reach even higher levels, so that we not only theoretically compare them with the likes of Windies Pacers of 90s, Australian Pacers of 90s and 2000s or the Pakistani Pace troika of Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis, Shoiab Akhtar. But even the stats help us say that yes we have achieved that level.

Happy Reading!