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New Delhi: Left-arm spinner Ravindra Jadeja was expected to play the lead role on the fifth day of the fourth Test between India and England at The Oval. The pitch looked flat except for the “rough”, especially outside the left-handed off-stump, which Jadeja had filed to take advantage of.
Instead, on an intriguing final day, India’s much-anticipated pace attack raised its reputation once again, with Jasprit Bumrah running through the English middle-order in a post-lunch reverse-swinging, which took him his 100th Test wicket. claimed to have taken
The fast bowlers once again gave India a 157-run victory after England claimed 14 out of 20 wickets in the Test. This also included the seven wickets that fell on the final day.
India’s first win in 50 years at the Oval, which holds a special place in the history of Indian cricket.
It was here, on 24 August 1971, that Indian cricket crossed two important milestones – the first Test victory on English soil, as well as the first series win in the country.
After drawing the first two Tests, India won the third by four wicketsThe series was won 1-0 under the captaincy of Ajit Wadekar.
However, the victory was built on the back of the team’s spin trio – B Chandrashekhar, Bishan Singh Bedi and S Venkataraghavan. Of the 20 English wickets that fell that day, 15 went to specialist spinners. Eknath Solkar took three wickets, but even he bowled alternating between slow-medium pace and spin bowling. The other two English batsmen were run out.
After five decades there has been a big change in Indian cricket. India lead the Test series 2-1 based solely on the ability of the fast bowlers. In the four Tests of the series so far, fast bowlers Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Shami, Umesh Yadav, Shardul Thakur, Ishant Sharma and Mohammad Siraj have taken 61 wickets out of 70 for England. Jadeja has got six and three runs out.
Kohli has been so reliant on his fast bowlers that one of the best spinners of his generation and current world No. 2 Test bowler Ravichandran Ashwin in the ICC rankings has no place in the playing XI in all the four matches he has played. till now.
The series is only adding to the reputation of India’s fast battery, which has been a topic of discussion in the cricketing world for some time. Reputation, as the numbers show, is well earned.
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India’s fastest battery
Between 2011 and 2021, India’s fast bowlers scored 922 wickets, surpassing spinners, who have scored 877 runs in 108 Tests, both at home and abroad.
This is the first decade since the 1970s that Indian fast bowlers have outperformed their spin counterparts.
This is a far cry from the days when India relied on spinners not only in Asian countries known for dusty turners, but also in SENA countries – South Africa, England, New Zealand and Australia.
For example, in the 1970s, Indian spinners took 643 wickets throughout the decade, compared to 291 wickets (47 of them outside Asia) by fast bowlers in 119 Test matches.
The fast bowlers under Kapil Dev did better in the 1980s, taking 528 wickets, but were overtaken by the spinners with 546 wickets in 88 Test matches.
In the 1990s, spinners took 517 wickets under Anil Kumble, while fast bowlers took 471 wickets in 70 Test matches. By the 2000s, as India’s fast bowling stocks improved, his wicket count increased to 783, but at the same time, the spinners continued to dominate, taking 868 wickets.
But now, India’s fast bowling is at a level where even on flat or home pitches, they have started picking up wickets.
Between 2011 and 2021, India played 54 Tests in Asia, with fast bowlers taking 304 and spinners taking 673 wickets.
In contrast, India played 41 matches in Asia in the 1990s, in which the fast bowlers took 223 wickets while the spinners took 392 wickets.
Effective Number of Fast Bowlers – Best in 2021
In the 1970s, Syed Abid Ali, Madan Lal and Karsan Ghavri were India’s only fast bowlers.
By 1978, Kapil Dev made his debut, and he led the attack until the 1990s with Roger Binny, then Chetan Sharma and Manoj Prabhakar.
In the 1990s, Javagal Srinath, Venkatesh Prasad, Manoj Prabhakar and Kapil Dev were the only fast bowlers to take more than 50 wickets.
He was influenced by the likes of Anil Kumble, Harbhajan Singh and even Venkatapati Raju.
Using bowling statistics from ESPN Cricinfo, ThePrint has devised a measure to calculate the number of effective fast bowlers that Team India has used in Test matches in each decade. We used Laxso and Tagepera Method to arrive at the figure.
According to this analysis, by 2000, India averaged more than three fast bowlers in their line-up every year who could take ‘substantial’ wickets. The criterion for ‘adequate wickets’ changes based on the total number of wickets taken by fast bowlers in that decade.
For example, if 100 wickets are taken in a decade, of which 93 are taken by three bowlers and the rest by others, the number of effective fast bowlers will be 3. If four bowlers take 25 wickets each, then the effective fast bowler’s strength will be 4.
From 2000 to 2010, the team played an average of about 3-4 fast bowlers every year. After 2010, the team has at least four fast bowlers playing in a year. But in 2021, the number of effective fast bowlers is 5.3 – the highest in 50 years.
This means that over the years the reliance on one or two fast bowlers has come down significantly. The division of labor has improved due to the availability of more quality fast bowlers.
This is quite evident from the fact that between 2001 and 2010, India’s top fast bowler Zaheer Khan took almost a third of all wickets taken by Indian fast bowlers.
But between 2011 and 2021, although Ishant Sharma has taken the most wickets at 234, his number accounts for only a quarter of all wickets taken by Indian fast bowlers..
In fact, in the last decade, fast bowlers have taken so many wickets that by 2021, half of the top 10 highest wicket-takers since 1971 are fast bowlers.
However, that doesn’t mean that in other eras the fast bowlers didn’t do their job.
In the 1970s and 80s, whenever India played outside Asia, fast bowlers took about 25 per cent of total wickets, which increased to 53 per cent in the following decade after Kapil Dev’s international debut in Faisalabad, Pakistan.
However, Kapil’s record is an anomaly. Not only did he finish with 434 Test wickets, briefly holding world records, in the 1981–90s, he alone took nearly a third of the total wickets managed by India in non-Asian countries.
Improvements in the fast bowling department took place in the 1990s and 2000s, when fast bowlers accounted for nearly 60 per cent of the total wickets on overseas pitches, which has jumped up to now. 76 percent in 2011-21.
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spinner still relevant
One of the reasons why India’s fast bowlers are now outperforming the spinners is that the country has played more series overseas in the last two years.
In 2020, just before the Covid-19 pandemic hit the world, India played a Test series in New Zealand. So far in 2021, the team has played a total of three series – one against Australia and two against England, one at home and one abroad.
Apart from this, India also lost to New Zealand in the final of the World Test Championship played in England at Lord’s.
The spinners still dominate the series played in India. Data shows that since 2016, spinners have accounted for two-thirds of the total wickets in all Test series played in India.
Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja have taken the most spin wickets in India since 2015.
Decade-by-decade data also shows that whenever a Test match has been played on an Asian pitch, spin bowlers account for about 60 percent of all wickets.
After 2019, India have played only one series at home against England, which was dominated by left-arm spinner Axar Patel. Patel took 27 wickets in the four-match series.
(Edited by Arun Prashant)
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