In Gautam Gambhir’s first series as India’s head coach, Riyan Parag played all three matches due to his slight spin prowess. Rinku Singh bowled the penultimate over when Sri Lanka needed just 9 runs to win, and then captain Suryakumar Yadav came to bowl the final over. Is this all a mere coincidence?
Lack of part-time bowlers in the last decade
Gautam Gambhir arrived in the Indian team in 2003, when most of India’s batters bowled. Sachin Tendulkar, Virender Sehwag, Sourav Ganguly, and Yuvraj Singh made the team based on their batting, but their bowling bailed India out in various situations. This continued until the next decade, and India even won the ODI World Cup partly because of these plethoras of bowling options. Yuvraj was the ‘Player of the Tournament’ with 11 wickets to his name along with 343 runs.
The trend died a slow death, with Suresh Raina being the last true batter in the Indian lineup who could roll his arm. Kedar Jadhav was the last player who was handed the ball, but unlike Raina, he wasn’t handed the ball regularly. In the last decade, we’ve seen great batters like Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, Shreyas Iyer, KL Rahul, and Shikhar Dhawan be part of the team for at least half a decade, and yet none possessed the ability to give Team India the upper hand with the ball even once.
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Transition in effect
This approach was brought back. India selected Shivam Dube over Rinku Singh in the T20 World Cup due to the batter’s ability to bowl at a handy medium pace. Axar Patel and Ravindra Jadeja played together despite both being left-arm all-rounders. We all saw it work wonders as India won their first ICC trophy in 13 years.
Gautam Gambhir has identified that he needs to bring back the old era, where our batters bowled. So, if and when our bowlers are having a bad day, they have some cushions, and the possibility of a victory remains. Shreyas Iyer was seen bowling in the nets before the ODI series started on August 2. Yashasvi Jaiswal had expressed earlier in the year that he’s ready to bowl his handy leg spin whenver the captain tells him.
Despite all-rounders Axar, Jadeja, Dube, Hardik Pandya, and Washington Sundar already present, Gambhir wants players like Parag, Jaiswal, and Shreyas to hone their skills and be ready when the team needs them to bowl a couple of overs.
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