Just been extremely disappointed with the current performance of the Indian bowlers. I can’t recollect in any of the recent matches where we have conceded less than 300 runs while bowling first (today being an exception, since NZ only had 280 runs to win), putting tremendous on our batsmen. It seems they cant figure out where to bowl and I am not sure if anyone is even guiding them. If yes, then they dont seem to be implementing that guidance. I cant figure out for the love of God, why is Ishant Sharma still getting selected in the one day team. He really needs to figure out how to bowl, because sometimes it seems that he is absolutely clueless on what to bowl and where to bowl. Only one fast bowler seems like doing a reasonable job and that it seems to Mohd. Shami, however, it seems that he has taken over Ishant’s mantle of bowling wayward in the last couple of games. Bhuvneshwar Kumar does not have the pace without the swing is not a threat at all. On these pitches in the upcoming World Cup, I am not sure how useful he is going to be. What we need is someone who is out and out fast, someone like Mitchell Johnson or a Dale Steyn who even on a bad day are able to scare some batsmen and get wickets. I cant understand why we never have those types of bowlers. I mean we have one of the best pace academies of the world and yet don’t produce a world class genuine fast bowler.
The positives that I see is that we have exactly one year to rectify all these issues. The wickets in Australia and New Zealand don’t have a lot of swing, but have a lot of bounce and carry and we need to have bowlers who are able to use that. I think this defeat should act as an eye opener for the Indian team and hopefully they get their act together. If not, it is going to be a very bad World Cup for us and we will end up losing the title of World Champions.
My thoughts...My story 