By Sanjay Manjrekar
When Rahul Dravid retired from international cricket, we all got caught up in finding out who would fill up his ‘big boots’, as they say. I wrote at the time, that, instead of finding a suitable replacement for him at the No. 3 position, if India found three world class bowlers instead, they would win more matches. Great batting does not win you as many matches, as great bowling does; a fact borne out by just looking at records of Pakistan in the 90s, when they had a great bowling attack, against the records of India who had a great batting line up post 2000.
I am just wondering if that is starting to happen now, what with India having won some crucial games by virtue of good bowling, more than good batting. The last match against Sri Lanka for instance, to get through to the final. A chasing team had all the cards in their favour in a situation like this, but it was Bhuvneshwar Kumar’s bowling that won India that game and an entry into the final.
India is on a winning roll at the moment but they know that the next real stern test will come when they tour South Africa in November. After the overseas debacle of 2011-2012 and the loss to England in the Test series at home, I was thinking that India would become lambs to the slaughter on that tour. But I am thinking a bit different now. We may be actually veering in that direction of having three world class bowlers in our side; this seemed impossible eight months back.
I may be getting a bit ahead of myself here, but with the emergence of Bhuvneshwar Kumar, who I thought was a more important find for Indian cricket than a Pujara or a Dhawan, in the long recent home season, fills me with hope.
Add to that a Umesh Yadav plus Jadeja and India might have a better quality Test bowling attack than the last time they were in South Africa.