Is it lack of fitness, attitude or Lack of hard work?

Recently while lecturing at the cricket club of India, India's legendary fast bowler Kapil Dev said that Indian fast bowlers lack the attitude and fitness. It’s an age old debate which has been going on forever and in spite of having a steady supply of bowlers in the recent years we haven't found a single decent partner for Zaheer in the test team. There have been various debates and discussions over this matter in the past and none of them have conclusively come up with any plausible explanation for this scenario.

Whenever a bowler makes his debut for India, it seems like he comes with an expiration date. He bowls fast and is fit for a year and then his speed drops and his accuracy deserts him and finally loses his spot in the team. What causes this decline? Is it fitness and attitude, like Kapil said in his lecture or is it general unwillingness to do hard work. I feel that it’s the combination of all three. There has been a cry over too much cricket all the time but even then we see cricketers hardly missing the Champions League and IPL unless they are unfit to play.

Fast bowling is hard and it takes a huge toll physically on a bowler and a successful bowler at the international level should know when he needs to rest. It also comes to the fact what their priorities are. Indian players do play a lot of cricket probably more than the rest of the world which does result in more injuries. Playing in meaningless T20 games twice a year will not do anything for the confidence of the bowlers. The young bowlers also probably need a lesson as to how to handle instant success. A bowler like Ishant who was brilliant on his first tour was never the same a year later.

Once these young bowlers get the success and make money probably the hard work goes out of the window. There is no doubt that the Indian bowlers are talented that’s the reason they play at the highest level but do they have the drive to learn and improve is the question. The bowler needs to constantly work on his bowling, develop new tricks and keep evolving. The major factor in all this is to remain fit and fresh when playing at the highest level. When we talk about comeback we always speak about Zaheer in 2006 but that was the Pre-IPL era. Now the question is whether these young bowlers are ready to do the hard yards? Are they ready to sacrifice an IPL tournament preparing and resting for an international series?

India is going to take on Australia in couple of months and with the scar of England tour still fresh in mind the team needs good bowling attack. A fit Zaheer is the most important cog in India’s wheel for that test series but will India be able to find out an able support for the premier bowler? Praveen was very good in England and probably will travel to Australia too; Ishant might regain his place in the test squad if he recovers from injury on time. The success of the Indian test team depends on a good bowling attack, Zaheer is on his last legs at the big stage and if India needs to be at the top they need to unearth some good bowlers to take over the mantle.

The BCCI needs to identify some good bowlers and pull them out of the meaningless T20 games and make them play only in the first class games and the A tours. That’s the only way to preserve these young bowlers and keep them fresh, fit and hungry when they play for team India. The drop in attitude and fitness might be attributed to the countless games the youngsters play these days, so unless something drastic is done in the coming months another humiliating loss is in the offing down under.

Article by: Giridharan Subramanian