Another fast bowler is moving ahead

The election season is ahead in the most populated state in the country. And this is now a fashion to poach a cricketer to join politics. We have seen Sreeshant some days back at Kerala, Sidhu pajji has recently announced a new political party, although he is veteran as he is in the political arena for quite some times.

This time another promising swing bowler from Meerut who has has started very promisingly & bowled brilliantly - Praveen Kumar has swung it big this time as he has joined Samajwadi Party(a regional political party in Uttar Pradesh) today.

But this time, the news about Praveen's new assignment is quite a bit shocking. He has bowled well in the recently concluded IPL where he was one of the very important member of Gujrat Lions. And he has bowled well in the domestic tournaments too. But all went in vain. He never got a call back from Indian selector's after that shoulder injury of 2011. Sreeshant had replaced him in the World Cup of 2011 which India won.

Praveen Kumar will be remembered for his swing bowling & his death bowling was very critical too. During the good days, he was Dhoni's go-to-man & in some games, we had seen him bowling long spells. His heroics of 2008 VB series in Australia was very impressive too. Still he is India's one of the best economical bowlers. A bowler of his stature should have played more. He has played only 6 Test matches, 68 ODIs & 10 T20s for India. His example also shows that still Indian selectors want to hear 'yes sir' from players. Only statistics doesn't speak for getting selected in Indian team.

Indian selectors Should have opened their eyes more widely as Praveen Kumar was & is very vividly visible because of his incredible performances in domestic tournaments.

Jasprit Bumrah - a new sensation for India

India has a history of producing great batsmen in world cricket. And some quality spinners too. But do you remember any great fast bowlers before 2000 rather than Kapil Dev & Javagal Srinath? There can be lot of debates on this but honestly, the bowlers who consistently performed well for the team- not many. New Indian cricket team in the new millennium has witnessed some great promising passionate bunch of bowlers - Zaheer Khan, Ashish Nehra, Irfan Pathan, Praveen Kumar, Ishant Sharma, Umesh Yadav, Varun Aaron, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Md. Shami are very few among them. But who is consistent among them?

Isn't it quite a bit easy to get picked in the Indian Cricket team if you are a pacer & perform continuously well in one domestic season?  If you look into the data, it shows that the shelf life of fast bowlers in India is very less. Since 2004, 52 of Indian cricketers have made their debuts, 25 out of them were fast bowlers! 

Jasprit Bumrah has made his debut for India in the month of January against the Aussies in Australia. And he is not a unknown cricketer though. He made his debut for Mumbai Indians in IPL'2013. And if you remember his first match, he took 3 wickets for 32 runs in 4 overs after conceding 3 fours by Virat Kohli in his first 4 deliveries. It was good for him that John Wright had spotted him in a talent hunt & for Bumrah to get picked in the star studded Mumbai Indians was great when he never played for his own state Gujrat in Ranji Trophy or in any 50-over match earlier. He might not have ever thought of sharing the new bowl with Ashish Nehra who made his debut for India long back in 1999. And this is the fun of this great game of cricket. 

A different bowling action. Match against Aus-A in 2014

India was in search of quality death bowlers. And Bumrah has just filled that hollow gap. His ability to bowl consistent yorkers in the death overs has helped the team. If you are a bowler, it is expected that you will bowl some rare yorkers in a match. But to bowl consistent yorkers is something when you should have lot of control in your bowling. And of-course this requires lot of practice. Sharing the same dressing room along with Lasith Malinga might have helped him as well. With a very different bowling action, along with variations have troubled some of the great players in recent time. Dhoni praised about him saying that he is the 'find of Australian tour'. And the maturity he has shown in this small time is commendable. It is important to keep himself fit as many former cricketers are saying that his bowling action is injury prone. 

Fans around the World have got one very interesting fast bowler to watch out for. Hope his shelf life will be far better than many other promising fast bowlers of this great nation.