The curious case of the Indian fast bowler

I read a piece on Varun Aaron in the Indian Express.
It's always been the case of the Indian fast bowler. We haven't had a long-lasting one since Srinath retired.
Zaheer was fast when he began, but he relies more on experience and guile nowadays. Sreesanth is fast, but he's got an attitude problem and cannot control the direction of the ball when he bowls. This is despite the fact that he has the best seam position in the business.
Irfan was fast, but Gregg Chappell told him to cut out on pace. He's not playing for India anymore
Munaf was hailed as the next big thing, but fitness issues made him a reliable medium pacer who is an excellent first change bowler.
Nehra is quick on his day, but he needs to be 100 per cent fit when he bowls.
There were also names like RP Singh, VRV Singh and some names that came and went, which I cannot remember.
So we have fast bowlers. Varun Aaron is one of them, but will he last? Will he be the next Srinath? Will he not breakdown and go before his career begins? This is a question not just for him, but for the entire crop of Indian kids who want to bowl fast.
Two years ago, Youtube had this video of this kid called Atul Sharma. Atul was, and this is assumption here, a rich kid, who wanted to do whatever it took to bowl fast. So there was a video of him working out and having a Shaoaib Akhtar-like action. He was supposed to play for The Rajasthan Royals, but he's disappeared like several other kids.

Srinath has been India's only genuine
fast bowler in the last two decades

In the subcontinent, India is one country that hasn't produced a fast bowler who has lasted a while. Sri Lanka has Lasith Malinga, the new kid Thisara Perera and people like Dilhara Fernando as backup. Pakistan keeps on producing fast bowlers like India produces batsmen, while Bangladesh rely more on spin that the fast men. Unfortunately for India, Harbhajan Singh is the only guy who is amongst the best in the world. The others are treated as part time bowlers. Also, it's cooler being a fast bowler. India can no longer ask someone to bowl two overs of seam and then call the spinner. Kapil Dev broke that trend in the late 70s, but he was an one-man army. Kapil created the trend for several people dreaming of bowling fast and Srinath was one guy who managed to be consistently fast throughout his career.
Srinath, started off as a vegetarian, but began eating meat to give himself more physical strength. Today fitness is a key in any sport, but the Indians keep breaking down. Zaheer has had several injuries, Nehra and Munaf are either in or out because of some strain, Irfan and RP are looking to make a comeback, while Sreesanth needs to focus on self-discipline.
Diet and fitness have been an integral part of a fast bowler. India keeps breaking stories about the next big thing, but they tragically die before they are born. Plus going by the wickets this World Cup has produced, would it be fair on the fast bowlers if they're going to be hit all across the ground? There is only so much they can do and if the administration doesn't get its act together in providing sportier wickets, people like Varun Aaron will fade away just as quickly as they came into the news. 

Bad players of spin? I don't think so

I see the scorecard of the West Indies-South Africa test match. On a rain-affected day, South Africa are 70/3, with all three wickets going to spinners.
South Africa has the same problem with spin like India does with pace, feel several people. But yeah, they like bringing India's problem up, because our players are a bunch of brats.
Again, I speak of test matches because that brings out the best in a player.
And I'm going to bring out the same argument that I did when I defended India when people said that they couldn't play fast bowling.
South Africa have never had a quality spinner, just like India has never had a tearaway fast bowler.
Paul Adams, Pat Symcox, Niky Boje and more recently J Botha have all played a role for South Africa in the shorter version of the game by bringing down the run rate, but in test matches, except for Adams, the others have contributed more with the bat and Botha is not a very experienced test player. I don't think that he's played a test match either.
They have had two crappy players of spin: Daryl Cullinan then and  JP Duminey today, but apart from that, the guys have done fairly well against spin even in India, as Hashim Amla so wonderfully displayed on South Africa's last tour.
A similar thing can be said about the Australians. Experts say that they suffer against quality off spin, but they have only produced great leg spinners in Bill 'O' Riley, Richie Benaud and Shane Warne. The off spinner has always been a in and out guy in their side.
But again, this is a theory. And like I've said before, theories can be cut into pieces and I can be sent to the gallows for writing this.

Indians and fast bowling

I'll agree that India as a team played like shit at the T20 World Cup.
Dhoni's remarks stating that the IPL parties were responsible for the poor performance will raise questions about his sincerity as a player and a captain, and the team's discipline as a whole. The media being the way it is will use this as a tool to try and finish him off, unless he proves them wrong in the next series we play
If that wasn't bad enough, Yuvraj and Nehra have been involved in an altercation at some pub in the West Indies. They will obviously deny the charges made against them.
Ridiculous, I say.
However, this piece isn't about the partying scenario and the fact that Team India lacks discipline and consistency to make winning a habit. This is a piece about India and the players' inability to play fast and short pitched bowling. And here, I'm going to do a test match analysis, because it is in that format where a bowler can take advantage of the fact that he can bowl fast and short and get away with aiming the ball at the batsman's head rather than the stumps.
For the last 50 years, the cricketing world has always criticized Indian batsmen and their inability to play fast bowling. Fred Trueman during his career best of 8/31 in his post match interview said that the Indian batsmen were scared. And yes, at that time there were. Here, you have a guy bowling at over 90 mph and your head and the only thing you think of is your life, as the concept of helmets and protective gear hadn't come out then.
But since then, things have changed.
Today, batsmen around the world, despite the protective gear available to them, suffer against genuinely quick and quality fast bowling. If I'm not convincing enough, let's look at statistics
Shoaib Akhtar, regarded as the world's fastest bowler averages 34.50 against India. He averages 24 against South Africa and 5 against New Zealand. Now it will be unfair to New Zealand because Akhtar has played only two test matches against them. But against South Africa, he has played five test matches and 10 against India.
But then, Shoaib would be considered inconsistent by cricketing pundits.
So let's take an example of Curtly Ambrose. Ambrose averages 20.99 in tests, which is a phenomenal record in itself. But he averages an unenviable 38.26 against India.
By showing these numbers, I'm not saying that Indian players are fantastic players of fast bowling. Alan Donald, in his career, averaged 17.31 against the Indians. Malcolm Marshall was consistent against all the sides he bowled against and Shane Bond has done phenomenally well against the subcontinent, except Sri Lanka.
Now, why does everyone criticize India and its inability to play quick bowling? Aakash Chopra has been tweeting about how we need to produce fast bowling wickets in India. While I don't disagree with him, Sri Lanka need to do the same thing. For the last 10 years, they have produced wickets to give Muralitharan his wickets. No offence to Murali, though. The man has taken wickets all over the world. The wickets in Pakistan are practically dead.
I think there are a couple of reasons why India is always criticized about their inability
1) India has never produced a quality fast bowler. We've had several fast medium guys. Srinath was genuinely quick towards the end of his career, but that's about it. Ishant was labelled as the next big thing, but he's been bowling like a cunt of late
2) Most Indian batsmen, who have done well against quick bowlers have been smug about it. Funnily though, four of India's greatest players against fast bowling - Gavaskar, Vishwanath, Tendulkar and Dravid have never bragged about their ability. The others, however, look so smug and arrogant that it probably pisses a bowler off. Malcolm Marshall in his autobiography stated the reasons why he disliked Dilip Vensarkar and how he would enjoy bowling fast to him because of his pissing-off attitude.
So, if Indian players need to stop getting targeted, then they need to produce good wickets in India and stop acting like a bunch of pompous idiots. While this will not happen overnight, hopefully in time things will change. Otherwise, teams the world over will try and do their best against India

Australia have cracked the T20 format

In the first T20 World Cup, Australia looked out of sorts.
They never adapted to the shortest form of the game, the same way India and Pakistan had.
Last year, they decided to have a couple of spinners, along with Brett Lee, Nathan Bracken and Mitchell Johnson. It was a good ploy, but unfortunately for them not good enough. They were getting the hang of the format, but not consistent enough.
This year, they have adopted a four-man pace attack and it has worked.
They probably teased everyone in the warm-up game by losing to Zimbabwe. It has always been a plot that they have followed.
In 1974, when Dennis Lillee was making his comeback in the test match that shot Jeff Thompson to superstardom, Lillee was bowling military medium pace at the practice grounds. Similar tricks have been employed by the Australians in future series. The warm-up game was just another example.
India wasn't the only one to be brutalized by the four fast men. Sri Lanka got buggered last night.
In a way it's good for India. According to one of the tweets I read, Australia had to beat Sri Lanka to let India have a chance of qualifying.
It would also do India a world of good if the BCCI payed the next team India is scheduled to play to forfeit and let India qualify.
Since it is Sri Lanka, we have to find a way of tackling Malinga. Maybe Zaheer could take Malinga out for a drink and tell his Mumbai Indians bowling partner to bowl like him for this one game.
Similarly, Yuvraj can finally put himself to use and take Mahela and Sanga for an all-night party before the game. Yuvraj isn't going to make runs anyway, but this way, neither will Mahi and Sanga.
Hopefully, however, Australia's pace attack destroys everyone else to prove that India is not the only side in the world that is genuinely fucked up against fast bowling.